The Kankerlats Of London
by 2remember
Summary: [Sequel to Studio Mahem] Aelita is opening for the SubDigitals In London! But why are there Kankerlats all over?
1. Road Trip

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Author's Note: **There will be further disclaimers as the story progresses, but mention is made to a person actually living, and nothing in this story about this person should be construed as being factual.

* * *

She lolled her head as she looked out the window of the bus, watching the scenery flash by. The view out the window was almost bucolic, a sea of green with little dots of white here and there. Animals grazing, birds flying about, farmers going about their chores, all blissfully ignorant of the passing traffic on the roadway.

Aelita Stones watched as the world flew by, almost mesmerized. Although her looks would indicate otherwise, this young girl had only lived in the world for around a year and a half, and had never seen much beyond the school where she attended. Before that, she existed in another world, a world generated by a computer.

Around a month ago, Aelita had signed a contract to perform with the pop group, the SubDigitals, as a DJ/mixer. The events surrounding her signing were monumental, and almost fatal. An evil computer program, XANA, had tried, and very nearly succeeded, in killing her and her friends. It was only by a miracle that they escaped.

And that miracle was her father, Franz Hopper. Stones was not Aelita's real family name, it was Hopper. She had believed her father was lost, somewhere in the vast digital network; but he had somehow learned of the plot to kill her and her friends, and rescued them all.

Since then, it was school, rehearsals, saving the world a few times, then back to school. Never time for, or with, her father; at least, not until she left a few hours ago. Franz Hopper had somehow managed to appear on the street corner close to the studio Aelita had left from, and somehow managed to speak to her on her cell phone. He told her she was beautiful, and they would talk when she got back.

_Daddy, I would have chucked the whole thing to spend time with you again,_ Aelita thought as the miles rolled past, _London, the SubDigitals, Lyoko. All of it, just to be with you._

Across from her was another young girl, Elizabeth "Sissi" Delmas. Sissi was Aelita's traveling companion on this trip, though not by either girl's choice. Aelita and Sissi weren't exactly friends; Aelita and her friends were regularly hounded by Sissi, and she seemed to think that she was somehow better than everyone else, especially Aelita.

Aelita had no idea that she would even have a companion on this trip. If she had, she definitely would have picked someone else. And, while Sissi didn't mind going to London, the circumstances that gave her the opportunity were not that pleasant:

"_Elizabeth," her father had told her, "your grades are inexcusable. You may think you have immunity from failure because you're my daughter, but I can assure you that you do not."_

"_But daddy, I've been trying as hard as I can, but I can't get any study time, not with Miss Bubblegum Crisis screaming in the middle of the night!"_

"_I happen to know that Miss Stones has settled down quite nicely over the past few months, and I've also been talking to your teachers. Elizabeth, you don't even try to hide the fact that you're not paying attention in class! You sit and read your teen magazines in each period, and then stroll out like you did the teacher a favor by showing up! Well, that is going to stop, now. You are extremely close to failing, young lady. If you don't do something to improve your grades, I shall be forced to return you to the eighth grade. Not only that, I will remove you from this school and place you somewhere else, somewhere that will give you the structure you need to turn yourself around."_

"_You don't mean..."_

"_Yes, I do. I have spoken to Aunt Rita at St. Ursula's already, and she assured me she would have no problem accepting you as a mid-year transfer. And, she knows enough about you not to be fooled by your little ploys."_

"_Yeah, Aunt Rita would," the girl said to herself._

"_However," her father continued, "you are not at the failure point yet. I have spoken with your French teacher, and she has agreed to accept a report from you as extra credit."_

"_Oh, really?!" Sissi exclaimed, excited at this chance of salvation._

"_Yes," was the reply, "I want you to accompany Aelita Stones when she leaves for London to perform with the SubDigitals. I want you to write a report, in the form of a newspaper article, about Miss Stones and the concert. When you return, you will present it to me for publication in the school newspaper. Additionally, I have made arrangements with the local TV station to have you present your report during one of their evening news broadcasts. Jim Morales will be joining you and Aelita on the trip, and he said he would help film the video you will need for the TV presentation."_

_Sissi was stunned. All she could think is, "I'm doomed."_

"_There will be no self-aggrandizing Sissi," her father continued, "you will write and present an accurate recollection of what happened, and offer no personal commentary of events or the people involved. If you do, you may as well pack your bags, for your next stop will be St. Ursula's."_

"_But, Daddy..." she tried, but he cut her off._

"_I mean it, Elizabeth. I have put up with your attitude for far too long. The world does not revolve around you or your desires. Now, go get packed for your trip."_

Now, the dark haired girl sat across from her nemesis, staring at a blank page in her notebook. She had a lot riding on this assignment, and for better or worse, she would have to come through.

While the two French girls sat towards the back of the bus contemplating the path that Fate had set before them, Jim Morales sat just behind the driver, regaling the man of his days as an over-the-road trucker in Canada.

"And let me tell you somethin'," he said, "that ice up there can be pretty slick! Friend of mine lost his rig in a patch of black ice on a hairpin mountain turn, and it was mid-summer before we found it and his body."

The driver, Simon, just nodded his head as he mentally increased the level of his crap filter.

Jim Morales had a unique quality, his mind could actually multitask. While he was spinning tales about his past to the driver/head roadie/soundman, he was also thinking about the conversation he had with Principal Delmas before he left.

"_Jim," Jean-Pierre had said, "I know that you're going to London to spend time with your nephew, but I also want you to keep an eye on Aelita Stones and Elizabeth for me."_

"_Sure, no problem," the PE teacher had replied._

"_While I don't think there will be any trouble," the principal continued, "I have a bad feeling. When I spoke with Sophie, arranging to have Sissi accompany them, the woman seemed a little unnerved, like something traumatic had happened and she hadn't totally gotten over it. Now, it may be a father's overactive imagination playing tricks on him, but I'd feel better if someone I knew and trusted was there in case of trouble."_

"_Well, gee, Mr. Delmas; I never knew you trusted me that much..."_

"_Of course I do, Jim! Just not with electricity."_

The principal had also told Jim about Sissi's report, and the fact she would have to present it on television afterwards, and would need some video to accompany her report. Which reminded him...

"...and that's how you tame a wild pig," Jim's mouth had finished, "well, I need to take care of a couple of things, so I'll just let you drive."

Jim got up and made his way to the back of the bus while Simon breathed a sigh of relief.

Jim walked past the girls to the back, where he had stashed a carry on bag. He rummaged around for a bit until he found what he was looking for, a video camera. He took it and walked back, stopping when he got back to his place behind the driver. He sat down and brought the camera to his eye. Looking through the viewfinder, he set the focus and the brightness/contrast so the two girls he was recording looked more natural.

"Say, you two!" he said, startling the both of them out of their daydreams, "why don't you talk a little. You're supposed to be on this big adventure together, and you're both acting like the other has the plague!"

Aelita turned and looked at Jim for a moment, like he had just gibbered at her in some unknown language. Sissi just glared at him for a moment, before turning her glare to Aelita.

"Sissi, it's not going to look good on TV if you look like you're about to throttle Aelita," Jim said.

"It's not her I want to throttle!" Sissi fairly well shouted, "if I thought I could get away with it, I'd strangle my father!"

"I'm sure he'll just love to hear that," Jim said, "I'm recording. C'mon, make nice. It won't kill either of you."

Both girls looked at Jim, then at each other, then sighed in resignation.

"Just help me out here," Sissi finally said to Aelita, "the sooner we get this done, the better off we both will be."

* * *

The mall was bustling with activity, typical for this Sunday afternoon in London. People rushing about to get their shopping done for the day, while others took their time and gazed longingly in store windows, wishing and dreaming. A young boy and his mother were walking to a department store to buy some clothes when something caught the boy's eye.

I was a little bug like thing, with what looked like a potato for a body and little mechanical legs. The potato body had what looked like a target superimposed over a peace sign painted on it, and a single, red eye in front. It scuttled about, walking up to shoppers and looking up at them, before scurrying off to repeat the performance over again.

"Mummy, what is that?" the boy asked his mother.

"I don't know, Timmy," was the reply. The woman looked around for a bit, then saw a display in front of a bookstore. The bugs seemed to be congregating there, and she saw there were two people with what looked like remote controls standing by.

"It's nothing to worry about," she told her son, "just some kind of publicity stunt, I think. I guess there's a new movie coming out soon, and they're trying to get people excited about it."

"Can we got over and look, mummy?" the boy asked.

"No, not today. I'm sure they'll be here for a little while yet; maybe we'll see them next week."

With that, mother and child continued on their way. Over at the bookstore, the bug things kept up their act, drawing people to the store and the display hanging in the window. In the display, there were more bug things walking back and forth, and behind them was a banner with pictures of the bugs and other creatures and large print that read, CODE XANA.


	2. On The Home Front

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

While Aelita was rolling through the French countryside, the other Lyoko Warriors were engaged in more mundane pursuits. Mundane, for them, that is.

"Jeremie, look out!" Odd Della Robbia hollered as another laser bolt flew past Jeremie's head.

They were in the Mountain Sector of Lyoko, on a mission to deactivate a tower. Odd and Ulrich Stern acted as the front line infantry, clearing the path of enemies, so Jeremie, the rearguard, could link up and secure the victory.

Today's opposing force was a group of Kankerlats, with Krabs and Megatanks guarding the tower. Odd and Ulrich made short work of the Kankerlats, and were now having at the Krabs. The two Megatanks flanked the activated tower, guarding access to it.

"Jeremie, you know if you lose it, it's game over," Ulrich said, "we got no way to deactivate the tower."

"Franz Hopper could," Jeremie retorted, "I mean, he is here."

"Yes, I am," came the voice of the person in question, "but what happens if I'm not here, or not I'm able to assist you? Jeremie, you need to train on Lyoko just as much as Yumi and the others do on the console. They may like 'sitting on their butts doing nothing' as much as you like 'getting your butt shot at,' but they do it anyway. And by the way; Ms. Ishiyama, I understand Japanese as well as French, and do you actually kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"Jeremie!" came a shout. The boy ducked and rolled, just barely missing the laser bolt that a Krab fired at him.

"Keep your mind on the job, children," Franz chided, "this is only an exercise in that I'm the one controlling the activated tower and the monsters, not XANA."

The three boys nodded their assent, and Odd and Ulrich got back to work. Jeremie, twice bitten, found shelter behind some rocks. He peeked out and surveyed the situation, then came up with a plan. He carefully left his shelter, dropped to his knees and sang.

A single, tenor range note rang out, and two boulders suddenly appeared above the two remaining Krabs. The note stopped, and the boulders fell, destroying the Krabs.

"Great Jer!" Odd exclaimed, "now stay put while we take care of the Megatanks!"

When the Krabs were destroyed, one of the giant spheres left its position and rolled up to the intruders. It stopped, turned itself ninety degrees, then opened, its gap opening horizontally instead of vertically. Seeing what was coming, both Ulrich and Odd ducked as the Megatank unleashed its laser blast, a wall of energy that would slice and devirtualize anything. The beam sheared off the tops of boulders, and even damaged the activated tower a little. The only thing it didn't affect were its companion tank, and the Lyoko Warriors.

An instant before the monster could close its shell, there was a shout of "Laser Arrow!" and Odd's bolt struck the Megatank on its symbol, destroying it. With the path clear, Ulrich ran to confront the last monster.

The last Megatank opened up and charged to fire. Ulrich sprinted forward and managed to stab at the creature's symbol just before it unleashed its shot. Ulrich was blasted back and devirtualized by the Megatank's destruction.

"Okay, princess... I mean, Jeremie, the coast is clear," Odd said.

Jeremie shot the grinning cat boy a whithering glance as he stalked on by and entered the tower. Once inside, he went to the center, and was lifted up to the next level. When he touched the platform, it lit up and a display appeared. Jeremie walked up to it, placing his hand on the screen.

**Jeremie**

**Code:**

Jeremie entered LYOKO.

All of the displays that decorated the inside wall of the tower dropped from view.

"Tower's deactivated, guys," he said.

* * *

Two devirtualizations later, Jeremie, Odd, Ulrich and Yumi Ishiyama were standing around the main console, reviewing the day's events.

"So, Jeremie," Yumi asked, "I never got a chance to ask you; how did your and Franz's little surprise for Aelita work out?"

"Great," the blond genius replied, "she sounded like she really liked it, from what little I heard."

"What does that mean?" the Japanese girl asked next.

"I took off my earpiece when Franz connected," the genius replied, "it was a moment for them alone."

"Say Jer," Odd butted in, "you're getting better! You managed to stay virtualized long enough to actually deactivate the tower this time!"

"What can I say, Odd," Jeremie replied, "I owe it all to Ulrich."

"Wha????" Odd sputtered while the others just laughed.

"Jeremie," came the voice of Franz Hopper from the console, "could I speak to you before you leave?"

Everyone took that as an invitation to head back to school. The teens gave their friend a waive goodbye, and headed for the elevator.

Jeremie seated himself in the console chair and replied, "sure, what is it, sir?"

"I've been noticing some unusual readings in the quantum energy levels since I arrived," Franz Hopper continued, "it looks like a tower activates, then deactivates. However, there is no active tower anywhere on Lyoko."

"Could XANA have found a way to mask his activating towers?" Jeremie asked.

"Not from where I'm scanning from. The readings I'm getting are coming from the control nexus between the towers, and there's no way XANA can mask that unless he has total control of the nexus, which he does not."

"Is there anything we can do?" Jeremie asked next.

"Not until we find out where the energy is going," Franz replied, "I'm working on something to provide me with more details. When I have more information, I'll let you know."

* * *

Later on, Odd, Ulrich and Jeremie met in the cafeteria for Sunday dinner. Yumi had gone home with her brother, Hiroki.

"So, Einstein," Odd asked, "how you holding up? Miss Aelita yet?"

"Odd, she'll be fine," Jeremie replied, "I'm not worried about her at all."

"That's not what Odd asked," Ulrich said, "he wasn't asking about Aelita, he was asking about you."

"Wha'dya mean?" Jeremie blurted, "why should anything be wrong with me?"

"Well, you know," Odd said, moving in for the kill, "the love of your life is gone, trying her wings out. You know what they say: you can't keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen the big city."

"Odd, this is nothing like that," Jeremie retorted, "Aelita will be back in a couple of days, and then she'll be here for a long while."

"Yeah, until summer," Ulrich said, "I'll bet when school lets out, she'll be out of here like the rest of the boarders. She'll flit off to London, Munich, Madrid, Rome; all those places. And you'll be stuck here, or at your parents. Maybe the Riviera, if you're lucky."

"Alright guys, I see what you're trying to do," Jeremie finally said, "I admit it; I miss her. She's not even gone a day and I miss her smile. And, yes; I am afraid of losing her to her dreams, but I'm not going to be the one to crush them, just so I can keep her close."

Odd and Ulrich both smiled at that.

"Just checkin', good buddy," Odd said at last.

That night, Jeremie sat in his dorm room and tried working on his programs. He tried looking at the code fragment Franz Hopper had given him that enabled XANA to instantiate matter in the world, but the boy couldn't keep his mind on his work. Every so often, his eyes would drift to the clock on his desk and he would pause for a moment.

Finally realizing that he was wasting his time, Jeremie logged off and got ready for bed. He had just turned out the light and laid his head down when his cell phone rang. He quickly reached out and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Jeremie. Miss me?" came Aelita's voice.

"You know I did," he replied.

"I miss you too."

"How was the trip?" he asked next.

"Great!" she replied, "France is so beautiful! I think I could spend my whole life just traveling around Europe."

"Well, some people do just that," Jeremie said, "any problems with Sissi?"

"Not really. We just sat and watched the world roll by for a while, then Jim got out his camera and said we should talk a little. Sissi looked like she'd rather die than do it, but we did in the end."

"What did you talk about?"

"Nothings really. How I felt about the trip; was I excited; that kind of thing."

"Like an interview."

"Yeah, an interview."

"Hmm. That's interesting." Jeremie mused a moment, then added, "you know, there may be more to Sissi being there than just her father pulling strings. I don't know if you noticed it, but she's been real upset over the last couple of days. And Principal Delmas has been more dour than usual, especially around her. Keep your eyes and ears open for anything interesting, and let me know if you find something out. Meanwhile, I'll snoop around here to see if I can learn something. If I find something, I'll let you know."

"Was Lyoko quiet?" Aelita asked next.

"Yeah. Your father ran an exercise. I actually got into the tower this time."

"Good for you!"

"Aelita, after the last few weeks, I have a new appreciation for what you went though all that time you were trapped there. If I'd have known then what I know know, I would have improved your persona a lot sooner."

"Why don't you change yours like you did mine?"

"Your father locked me out of it. He said something about 'learning to crawl before you can walk.'"

"He does have a point," she said.

"Yeah, I know. I guess the only bad thing about it is I hate looking like a fairy. I just look so dumb."

"You never minded me looking that way."

"You're different; it looks good on you," Jeremie said, feeling his cheeks heat up, "the others still laugh when they see me on Lyoko."

"Well, I think you look good on Lyoko," Aelita said with the slight hint of a purr in her voice, "there were a couple of times when I wanted to get you alone and all to myself."

"Aelita!"

Just then, there was a muffled thump in the background of Jeremie's cell phone, and a voice said, "would you two lovebirds call it a night? I'm trying to sleep!"

"Sissi?" Jeremie asked.

"Yeah," Aelita replied, "we're sharing the same hotel room. Jim is sleeping on the bus."

"Well, we'd better hang up," Jeremie said, "I'll bet you've got a busy day tomorrow."

"Yeah, I do," she said, "good night, my Oberon."

"Good night, my Titania."


	3. Killer Music And Ghost Towers

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

The next morning, Monday, the two girls woke up and prepared for the day. They made their way down to the dining room, where they joined the rest of the SubDigitals and crew. Everyone welcomed the girls, and they sat down and placed their orders. After the waitress had left, Sophie came over and sat next to them.

"Well, I see you both arrived in one piece," she beamed, "now, here's what we're doing today. Aelita, you and Simon are going to go over your music for the performance. I know the two of you have been doing that for the past two weeks, but something's come up and we need to make a change. Simon will fill you in when you two get together."

"Elizabeth, I've got some press material on the group for you, and I'll make time for you to interview each of the band members, including Aelita. I know this is your first story, so I'll be glad to help you get a start. Also, Jim Morales told me that he would be filming video for a TV spot when you get back; I'd be more than happy to supply you with any promotional clips you may need for that; plus, I'll give you access to the video we shoot of the performances, and you can select clips from that."

Sissi looked at the woman in wonder.

"Thank you," she started, "I don't quite know how I can repay your kindness."

"Believe me, dear," Sophie replied, "I'm not doing this totally out of the kindness of my heart. Good reviews and good publicity are the life blood of my business. And while I won't promise not to steer you away from any negative publicity, I have been in your situation before, and I sympathize with you. Anything I can do to help, short of writing it for you, I'll be glad to do."

Seeing that her task of the moment was done, Sophie got up and went to talk with one of the other members of the group. Sissi just watched the woman walk off, and looked like someone had just saved her life.

"Sissi, what was up just now," Aelita asked.

"Oh, I just had a load taken off me," the girl replied, "daddy made me come along and write a newspaper article about you and the concert for the newspaper. And on top of that, I'm supposed to give a TV report. It's either that, or flunk out and be transferred to another school."

"You're not doing that bad, are you?" Aelita asked next.

"Yes, I am," the dark haired girl replied, "daddy thinks that I think I'm entitled to slide just because I'm his daughter, and he doesn't like that. Of course, he's right, I have been banking on him to slide through, but I guess my sins have finally caught up to me, so to speak. The upshot of it is I have to turn in a professional newspaper article and TV report or I'm gone."

Aelita silently pondered life without Sissi Delmas for a moment; then decided that no matter how pleasant such a life would be, she couldn't not help the girl out.

"Well, whatever I can do to help, let me know," Aelita said, "I'm sure with all the help you're going to get, you'll turn in a superb report."

* * *

Later that morning, Aelita and Simon were sitting at the mixing board on stage at the auditorium where they would be performing. Around them, various roadies and Jim Morales were setting up equipment and laying cables. Every so often, Jim would stop what he was doing and take his video camera and film. He got quite a few shots of the auditorium as it was being prepared, and a few shots of Aelita and Simon working on the music.

"Now, Aelita," Simon was saying, "for the most part, you'll be using the music we've been working with all along, but the sponsor wants a new segment added. At the end of the SubDigital's performance, you'll come back out and do a new mix using this music. And to add to the confusion, there will be special effects involved, and you'll have to do just a little bit of dancing and acting. Do you think you can handle that?"

"I don't know," Aelita replied, "it depends on what I'm going to be doing."

"Well, I'm not entirely sure myself," Simon said, "they've got some choreographer coming in to meet us tomorrow, so I guess we'll find out more then. In the meantime, take a listen to the music and start getting some ideas."

Aelita nodded and Simon went over to check on the sound wiring activity. Aelita looked at the disk she was given. All it said on the disk was, Special Tracks. She popped the disk in the player and started it up. After a few seconds of listening to the first track, she stopped the playback.

_There's something odd about this music,_ she thought to herself, _I mean, it sounds okay, and I can definitely get a vibe off of it, but it seems like there's something about it. Somehow it seems, familiar._

The pink haired DJ shrugged it off to her imagination and started the playback again. She listened to each track, getting the feel of the music and how she would mix it. All the while, she kept getting the feeling that there was something familiar about it, and something wrong. Finally, she took it out of the player and went back to her room.

When she got there, she rummaged around a bit and found her laptop. She booted it up, connected it to the hotel's network, and logged in. She popped the disk in the reader and loaded all of the music onto her local drive, then connected to Lyoko. Once connected there, she opened up a protected memory space in the supercomputer and downloaded the files there, taking care to insure that absolutely no one other than Jeremie, her father or herself could access the region. Once done, she totally erased the files from her laptop and called Jeremie.

"Hey, what's up?" Jeremie answered.

"I just ran across something," Aelita told him, "Simon gave me some new music I'm supposed to incorporate into my performance, but there's something strange about it. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's almost like I've heard it before."

"Maybe you have," Jeremie said, "it wouldn't surprise me all that much."

"Oh, not the music itself," Aelita said, "but something in the music. Could you or daddy take a look at some of the songs and see what you think? I uploaded them to a protected area of the supercomputer, so no one but you or him can get at them. I've just got a bad feeling that there's something wrong there."

"Well, I'm no music critic," Jeremie said, "but I'll look at them. If I find anything, I'll let you know, 'kay?"

"Okay," she replied, "miss you."

"Miss you too," he replied and ended the call.

* * *

The display at the mall was working to perfection. People would see the little bug things and wander over to the bookstore. There, the operators would explain that the things were props for a new movie that was coming out, and the bookstore had a magazine that provided more information. A few people were interested enough to go in and at least peruse the magazine; some of the ones who looked actually bought one.

This scene was being repeated at several different bookstores around London.

* * *

Later that evening, Jeremie connected up to Lyoko to examine the files Aelita was so worried about. Before he could get to them, Franz Hopper popped up on his display.

"Jeremie, we've had more energy fluctuations," he began, "they don't happen for very long, but they've been increasing in frequency since I began scanning for them."

"Any idea where they're coming from?" the genius asked.

"That's the bad part. They're coming from towers 100 through 180."

"There aren't that many towers in Lyoko!" Jeremie exclaimed.

"I know," was the reply, "did you use the base code for Lyoko when you and Aelita rebuilt it?"

"Yes, of course we did."

"That might explain things. When I was coding the portion of the system that controlled the towers, I allocated a memory table to contain the tower entries. Since I didn't know just how many towers I was originally going to need, I allowed for 200 towers in the table. Now, all of the other routines in the tower subsystem are driven off of constants in the code, which limit the number of towers to 50. However, the quantum energy distribution routines use the memory table to perform the allocation. On the old Lyoko, the routines would only find 50 entries in the memory table. But now, it looks like someone has added more, up to 150 more."

"XANA," was all Jeremie had to say, "so, how bad is it?"

"In the grand scheme of things, not all that bad," Franz replied, "the supercomputer has more than enough energy to do what it needs to do, including powering the Skidbladnir. My concern is, what is XANA doing with the energy he is stealing."

"Is there anything we can do about it?"

"The only thing I can think of is XANA somehow has tapped into the quantum energy distribution system and run his own lines," Franz replied, "we need to find those lines and trace where they lead to. He may have set up towers on Lyoko we don't know anything about; and, worst of all, they may be towers we can't shut down."

"Great," Jeremie said, rubbing his eyes under his glasses, "so we've got to go looking for these towers now. That's going to be like finding 150 needles in a rather large haystack."

"I may be able to help in that area," Franz said, "in my scanning, I've gotten a general idea of where on Lyoko the energy is going. It seems to be going somewhere in the Mountain Sector. I'll see what I can do to narrow it down a little more before you send anyone to investigate."

"Yeah, you do that," Jeremie said, "in the meantime, your daughter gave me another pile of cut grass to search for sharp objects."

"Oh?"

"They gave her some new music today to use in her performance, and something about it is bothering her," Jeremie said, "she wants me to take a look at it to see if I can find anything out of the ordinary."

"I didn't know you were a music critic," Franz said with the hint of a smile.

"I'm not, but I don't think that's why she sent it to me," Jeremie said, "I think she wants me to check to see if there are any unusual signals in the files; something that doesn't belong there."

"How long will that take you?"

"Probably a couple of hours. Let's put it this way; I'm in for another long night."

* * *

After a couple of hours, Jeremie stared at the screen, not believing what he saw.

"XANA must be getting senile," he muttered to himself, "this didn't work the last the he tried it."

Jeremie had been analyzing one of the music tracks Aelita had sent him, and quickly found the signal buried in the lower frequencies. It was subsonic, meaning it couldn't be heard by human ears, but it had a characteristic pattern to it that was out of step with the rest of the song. XANA must have implanted the signal to caused whoever listened to it to pass out. It almost worked the last time he tried it, but the gang had found out and stopped him.

Jeremie made a couple of entries, and deleted the signal from the music. He then played it into his headphones and verified that the song itself wasn't harmed. Once he was satisfied, he saved a copy of the scrubbed file and repeated the process on the others.

When he finally settled down to sleep, Jeremie thought that the songs were pretty good.


	4. CODE XANA

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

Aelita woke up the next morning to the sound of her cell phone ringing. She groped around for the offending object while Sissi grumbled about needing another ten minutes sleep.

"Hello?" she growled into the phone.

"And good morning to you too, sleepyhead," came Jeremie's voice, much too cheerfully.

"You had better be bringing me breakfast in bed," she replied.

"Would you like chocolate syrup or whipped cream," he quipped back.

Aelita smiled lazily as she sat up; Jeremie had actually flirted with her!

"You sure are in a good mood today," she said, "what's got you so happy?"

"Other than hearing your voice, I found something in that music you sent yesterday," the blond genius replied.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. XANA must have somehow embedded a signal like he did a couple of years back. Someone listens to it and they pass out, lock up, or whatever."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he replied, "I ran it through signal analysis without actually playing it. This seems too easy though. It was almost like XANA wanted us to find it."

"Well, maybe we should just be thankful for small favors," Aelita said.

"I wish. Listen, Aelita; be real careful today. I don't think that music is the only surprise XANA has for you."

"I will. What did you do about the songs?"

"I removed the signal from them and saved them to new files. They're in the protected region along with the originals, so all you need to do is load them back and mix them."

"Thanks, Jer," she said, "you're a lifesaver."

Just as Aelita ended the call, she was thumped in the back by a pillow.

"Missy, let's get something straight! We may have to sleep together, but that doesn't mean we're snuggle buddies! The next time you glomp on me and start moaning 'Jeremie' I'm going to kick your butt out of bed!"

Aelita turned to her roommate, blushing. Then, after a second, she got an evil smirk on her face and replied, "fair enough. But tell me; why were you moaning Odd's name all night? Whatever you were dreaming of, you sure were enjoying it."

* * *

Later that morning, the entire group gathered in a conference room at the auditorium. Sophie had explained that the choreographer wanted to meet with them to go over the new final act of the performance.

Aelita sat next to Simon, chatting about the new music, while Sissi stood by Jim as he taped the group. He had told her that he would record the whole meeting so she could replay it later on when she was working on her story.

The door to the conference room opened, and Sophie walked in.

"Well gang! I'd like you to meet..." she started.

Just as she cleared the doorway, something scuttled into the room, making little mechanical noises as it did. Aelita couldn't see clearly what it was because of the conference room table, so didn't think much of it until the something cleared the table and entered her view.

It was Kankerlats, five Kankerlats. The little monsters advanced and stopped just about three feet from the now startled girl, their red orbs locked on her, ready to fire at any moment.

If that wasn't bad enough, coming into the room next was William Dunbar, XANA's minion. He was wearing jeans and a Manchester United football jersey (think soccer, Americans), messy dark hair, and a small smile on his face.

Behind him came a man, wearing a suit. He too had longish dark hair, but he wore glasses, and the one thing that finally sent Aelita over the edge. The Mark Of XANA was present in his eyes.

The pink haired girl screamed, then fainted.

* * *

"Aelita! Aelita! Wake up!"

Aelita shook the fog out of her mind and slowly opened her eyes. Right above her was Sophie, looking for all the world like her pet kitten had almost died.

"What happened?" the woman exclaimed, "Harry and Randle walked in the room and you just screamed and passed out!"

Aelita looked around. She had slumped to the floor, and everyone had gathered around her. She looked and saw that the Kankerlats were still there, unmoving. She also saw William and the XANA possessed man standing at the edge of the crowd.

"Get them away from me!" Aelita shouted as she tried scrabbling away from the danger.

There was sudden movement and Ben scooped the girl into his arms, preventing her escape.

"Hey, calm down," he said, "it's okay; that guy's just the choreographer for the routine we're gonna do."

"But, his eyes!" Aelita exclaimed, trying to alert them to the danger without giving too much away.

"Oh, these?" the possessed man said. He gave a little laugh, then bent his head down and did something with his eyes. When he lifted his head back up, the Marks were gone.

"Sorry to startle you, luv," he said, "but those were just contacts. They're part of the costumes for the act, you see?"

He held out his hand, showing two contact lenses with XANA's symbols in them.

"The zombies will be wearing these," he went on, "my name's Randle Thorne, by the way. And this here is Harry Mudd."

William Dunbar nodded his head and said, "pleazdtomeecha."

Aelita sat up now and pointed to the Kankerlats.

"And just what are those?" she asked.

"Props," Randle replied, "they'll be running about the stage during the performance."

"Aelita, everything's alright," Sophie said, "I'm sorry if we startled you, but all this is for the new number we're doing. It's a publicity piece for CODE XANA."

By this time, Aelita had gotten up from the floor and was sitting in a chair. She was still shaken by the experience, but did nothing to exacerbate things.

Once she got settled, they got down to the meeting. Randle explained briefly how the performance go. Aelita would begin with her mix of the music they had supplied her, then the Kankerlats would come out and scuttle around the stage, firing harmless lasers about. Then, Harry and a group of dancers would come out, dancing to a tune that the SubDigitals would be playing as a counterpoint to Aelita's performance. The dancers would advance, and at the climax, they would fire a laser at Aelita and she would "explode," disappearing from the stage. Of course, Aelita wouldn't really explode, it would be pyrotechnics and a timely duck that would make it seem that way. They would begin rehearsals in the morning, and have everything down well before the performance.

"And one more thing," Sophie said just before the meeting broke up, "there will be security people walking around over the next few days, so don't be too concerned."

"What for," Jim asked.

"Well," Sophie began, "I wasn't going to announce this yet, but I found out late yesterday that the Queen will be in attendance Saturday night."

"Wow!" just about everyone said, and those that remained silent said it with their expressions.

After the meeting was over, Randle and Harry left; Randle saying they would be back tomorrow to begin rehearsing. When asked what to do with the Kankerlats, he said to just store them someplace out of the way, so they wouldn't get damaged.

In all that time, not one of the little monsters moved even a bit. Nico and Ben grabbed a couple and walked out, Jim picking up the last one and looking at it strangely.

"Huh, you know, I think I've seen one of these before; I just can't quite remember where..." he said to himself as he walked out of the room.

When everyone else had cleared out, Sissi asked, "Aelita, what was all that about just now?"

"Nothing," she replied, "I was just shocked by those things, and Mr. Mudd looked almost exactly like William Dunbar. Those contacts of Randle's were what put me over though. I didn't know they made things like that."

"Oh yeah," Sissi replied, "you can get cat's eyes, blood red eyes, black ones, all kinds. And you can wear them even if you don't need contacts to see with."

There was an awkward silence between the two girls for a moment, then Sissi broke it, "say, if you're not busy, could we spend a little time together this afternoon? I need to interview you for my story."

"Sure, Sissi," Aelita replied, "I think I could use the change after this morning."

"Well... you know, we... don't have to like, sit down and do it..."

"Sissi, is something wrong?"

"No, no," the dark haired girl quickly said, "it's just that... Look, I'll just say it. We're not exactly close friends, but you're the only person other than Jim I know here. Everyone else is nice and all, but I feel like I'm just in the way. Jim's helping with the set up and spending time with Chris; you're working with Simon and preparing for your performance, while I'm just sitting here taking up space. I've been trying my best on this article, but I don't think I've got all that much to say yet. And, to top it off, I want to get out of here for a little while, just to see the sights, and I don't want to do it alone."

Aelita raised her eyebrow at that.

"What do you want to do?" she asked.

"I don't know; anything! Let's just get out of here for a while!"

"Sounds like a plan to me," Aelita said, "I just need to make a phone call first."

With that, the two traveling companions left the conference room.

* * *

Before they left, Aelita went back to her hotel room. When she got there, she called Jeremie.

"What's up?" he asked when he answered.

"Jeremie, we've got trouble here," she replied, "I just had a meeting with William Dunbar and five Kankerlats."

"No way!" he replied.

"I'm not kidding," she assured him, "this man Randle Thorne brought them and William to a meeting we had today about the act we're supposed to perform, you know, the one the music was for?"

"Go on," Jeremie replied.

"Anyway, it's all for this new movie called, get this, CODE XANA. It's supposed to be about a computer program that is fighting to free a virtual world from an evil queen and her five evil henchmen. The performance we're doing will have me playing the queen while William plays XANA, directing the Kankerlats to try and bring me down."

"When did this all happen?"

"Around eleven."

"Okay. Stay sharp and be wary for trouble. I'm going to check into some things on this end. Call me tonight if I haven't called you before then."

* * *

After classes that day, Jeremie called the others and told them to stand by, that he was going to the factory to check on something, and might need their help. The three looked at each other as the boy genius ran off and wondered just what they could do to help.

When he got to the factory, Jeremie called Franz Hopper.

"Jeremie, did you realize you are almost as reliable as a swiss watch?" Franz said in greeting, "though I expected you to log in from your room."

"No time for pleasantries," Jeremie replied, "I got a call from Aelita at lunch today and this was the first chance I've had to follow up on it."

"Is anything wrong?"

"Yeah. She saw Kankerlats and William in London."

"When?"

"Around eleven."

"Let me check something." Franz was silent a moment, then said, "you're right, we have a problem. There was a fairly large diversion of quantum energy through the phantom towers at around that time. It lasted for nearly an hour."

"Then we've got to find out where that energy is going, and fast," Jeremie said, "were you able to localize the drain any closer than the Mountain Sector?"

"No, but my guess would be the further away from Carthage," Franz replied.

"Okay; I'll get the others here and they'll go take a look."

Jeremie got out his cell and made a quick call. About fifteen minutes later, Ulrich, Odd and Yumi appeared in the elevator.

"Get down to the scanners," Jeremie said, "you need to search the Mountain Sector."

"For what?" asked Ulrich.

"Around 150 needles," was Jeremie's reply.

* * *

The auditorium where the SubDigitals were performing was away from the hustle and bustle of London, and there wasn't all that much immediately around the venue. After making her call, Aelita went and asked Sophie if they could sightsee a little, to which Sophie agreed. Chris and Nico had been similarly activity challenged today, so Sophie solved three (maybe four) problems at once by having the two men escort the girls around London, with a stern warning to bring them both back in the same condition as they left. Both girls giggled when the two men lowered their heads as they replied, "yes ma'am."

The four wandered around London, sightseeing.

Chris and Sissi seemed to get along just fine, and Nico was a perfect gentleman to Aelita. After a while, they decided to split up; Sissi dragged Chris off to a mall to shop, while Nico and Aelita found somewhere to have a snack.

As they ate, Nico said, "you know, Aelita, you remind me of someone I knew in high school."

"Oh?" Aelita replied.

"Yeah," Nico went on, "during the last couple of years I was at Kadic, we had this guy as our science teacher, Mr. Hopper. Now, let me tell you, this guy was nuts, but in a good way. The way he taught Science made learning it really fun. Well, anyway, he had a daughter, maybe about eight or ten, I don't remember. But what I do remember is she had pink hair, just like you."

"Really," Aelita said, fascinated.

"Yeah, I remember once that Mr. Hopper asked me to walk her home, because he had to go and do something. I did, and wound up babysitting for the evening. He didn't come home until like eleven that night."

Aelita suddenly had a vague memory of that time. She thought it strange then that a stranger walked her home then stayed with her; just as strange as it was for her father to be so late. He did get lost in his work sometimes, but he had never been that forgetful.

"Man, I wonder where she is now," Nico said, "she was cute little thing back then; I'll just bet she's a babe right now. I saw a picture of her mom in the living room that day, and she definitely was hot."

Aelita blushed at that.

* * *

Yumi and Odd flew along the mountain sides while Ulrich navigated his Overbike along the trails. The three Lyoko Warriors were scanning the Mountain Sector for anything unusual, which was quite a chore.

Since it was related to the towers, they looked along the power cables that ran to the towers from Sector Five. Perhaps by tracing them, they could find their needles...

"Say, that looks odd," Yumi said, pointing to her right.

"No, I'm right here," Odd quipped. He angled his Overboard in the direction Yumi was pointing and flew over, with her close behind.

What Yumi saw was a bundle of cables that seemed to head off into space, literally. That wasn't really the problem, since these cables came from what passed for the sun in this region. The problem was that these cables stretched out into what looked like nothingness.

"Jeremie, do you see this?" Yumi said as she came within range.

"Yeah," was the reply, "there is nothing beyond that point, so it's not like the cables are bridging two mountains or something like that."

"Now that you have given me a location," came Franz Hopper's voice, "I can scan a little closer. It seems like these conduits run to the shell of Lyoko itself."

"What, to like another sector, like Sector Five?" Ulrich asked.

"I have no idea," was the reply, "do you think your vehicles can fly to the edge?"

"I don't know," Jeremie replied, "they've never tried anything like that before. Maybe it would be better if we used the Skid."

"I'm not sure I can pilot the Skid on Lyoko," Yumi said, "that one time I brought it back was nerve wracking enough."

"Jeremie, it looks like you will have to be the pilot then," Franz said.

"Oh, great," was the blond genius only reply.

* * *

Sissi and Aelita returned to their hotel room early in the evening. Chris and Nico were going to meet Ben and Jim for some partying, men only type stuff. The two girls were just as glad not to included in that, because it probably meant obnoxious smells and belching contests.

"It was good to get away," Sissi said as she threw down the bag she had carried in with her.

"It did help erase the shock of the meeting this morning," Aelita agreed, "I think I might even be able to face those things tomorrow."

"You know," Sissi said next, "I saw a bunch of those little monster things when we were at the mall. Chris said it must have been some kind of publicity stunt being put on by the producers of this CODE XANA thing."

"Hmm," was all Aelita said for a moment. After thinking a little more, she asked, "Sissi, have you heard anything about this movie they're talking about? Maybe something in on TV or a magazine?"

"No," the dark haired girl replied, "but it seemed like there was stuff about it all over. Here, look."

Sissi went over to the bag she dropped and rummaged around in it. Quickly, she found what she was looking for and produced it, a CODE XANA magazine.

"I bought it thinking it might be a good idea," was all she said as she handed it to Aelita.

Aelita took the magazine and opened it. Inside were pictures of the Lyoko Warriors, battling XANA's monsters on Lyoko, but from what looked like XANA's viewpoint. Aelita even remembered the battle the pictures came from. XANA had possessed an Army tank and tried destroying the factory with it. Of course they thwarted XANA, and of course they wound back time to erase the damage. Aelita supposed that XANA must have pulled these from its memory and got them printed somehow.

"I took a quick look at the pictures, and the computer graphics are fantastic," Sissi was saying, "I also noticed something else; the wicked queen looks an awful lot like you."

"Oh, come on now, Sissi," Aelita said almost too quickly, "we both know which of the two of us is the wicked queen."

Sissi's face clouded over for a moment, then she laughed, "yes, we do, my troublesome scullery maid. And don't you forget it!"

Both girls laughed.

"Anyway, I need to ask you a few questions for my article," Sissi said, "so, how about we get to it?"

"Sure."

* * *

Odd, Ulrich and Yumi waited in the Arena of Sector Five for Jeremie to arrive. Since no one was going to be at the console for this mission, Jeremie had taken what steps he could to secure the supercomputer against tampering. He locked the elevator at the bottom of the shaft, and locked down the console before hurrying down to the Scanner Room. If anything happened to them, no one other than Aelita would be able to access Lyoko.

Sensing that Jeremie was arriving, the trio looked up to see him appearing. Jeremie coalesced and dropped to the floor, landing on his butt yet again. His friends couldn't help but to laugh.

Jeremie stood up and dusted some imaginary dust from his clothes. He was dressed in Aelita's old tunic and pants. When Franz Hopper created this persona for Jeremie, he used Aelita's as his starting point. Except for the obvious sexual differences, he was garbed just like Aelita had been when they first found her on Lyoko. He even had pointed ears, and an earring in one ear. He still had his glasses, and his hair was still blond, not pink like hers. As somewhat of a concession, the pink accents of Aelita's clothes had been replaced with yellow ones, but there was no doubt about it; Jeremie looked like a fairy.

"Just remember," he told his still laughing comrades, "I'm driving the bus, and I'm sure I could find a way to dump your sorry butts into the Digital Sea if I needed to."

"Yeah, yeah, we know," Odd said, "let's get going; if we hurry, we can still make dinner in the cafeteria. They're serving lasagna!"

They quickly made their way to the Skid's hanger, and went to their teleporter pads, Jeremie taking Aelita's place in the center pad.

"Okay, Franz; we're in position," Jeremie called out.

"Very well," came Franz Hopper's voice, "teleporters activated. Energize!"

The four vanished, only to reappear in their places on the Skid.

"Powering up," Jeremie said as soon as he settled, "all systems go, activating vertical thrust."

"Releasing docking clamps," Franz said next.

The clamps moved away, and the ship rose into the air. Once they cleared the sphere of Carthage, Franz opened the tunnel to the Mountain Sector. Jeremie set his course and plunged the Skid into the tunnel.

Once there, they quickly returned to where the others had found the conduits. Jeremie slowed down and moved in on their target, until they were about twenty meters away. He then began to guide the ship along, following the conduits away from the mountains and towards the shell of Lyoko.

This continued on for about ten minutes until the ship finally made it to the shell boundary. There, bundles and masses of conduits converged from several different locations to one point, which looked like a forest of pipes piercing the sky and disappearing.

"Somebody punched a hole in Lyoko," Ulrich said.

"That is a very accurate statement, Ulrich," Franz said, "from what I can tell, those conduits do indeed burrow into the shell, presumably to something on the outside."

"How many conduits are there," Jeremie asked.

"One hundred and fifty," came Franz's reply, "I can also tell that there is quantum energy flowing in all of them; not enough to be a danger yet, but enough to provide significant power to something."

"I guess the next thing is to look outside," Jeremie said.

"I agree," Franz replied.

Jeremie took the Skid and directed it downwards, skirting the edge of the shell. When they came to the Digital Sea he dived right in, adjusting for the curvature of the shell, until they came to the access portal to the outside network.

Once outside, Jeremie managed to retrace his way back up the shell along the outside, until they came to the breach. What they saw next was startling.

There was a huge block on the outer shell of Lyoko where the conduits converged. On top of the block was a dish antenna, which was glowing brightly.

"XANA must be beaming the energy somewhere else," Jeremie said, "we have to destroy that thing."

"Wait," Franz interjected, "we don't know what will happen if we do that. If it somehow opens Lyoko to the network, we may lose it completely. We also don't know what would happen if the flow suddenly stopped. It could cause problems in the supercomputer."

"Well, what do we do?" Jeremie asked.

"Let's take a closer look at it," Franz said, "maybe something will come up in the scans that will help us."

* * *

Sissi's questions weren't too hard for Aelita. Surprisingly, the would-be reporter didn't ask one thing about Aelita's past. Most of her inquiries centered on how she got into mixing, what she liked about it, how hard was it, and so on.

"You know," Aelita said at one point, "I'm surprised you aren't trying to answer the burning questions you have about me; you know, the ones you've always had in your mind since we met."

"Oh, they're still there," Sissi replied with a smile, "it's just that I was specifically told not to indulge in my usual tendencies for this article. I may not believe everything you've said about your past, but I'm willing to accept it for now." She then added with a very predatory grin, "one day, though, I will be asking those questions, and I will be getting those answers. If not from you, then maybe from someone else."

After that, Sissi got up and got ready for bed, while Aelita did the same. Once changed, Sissi lay down and put on headphones, losing herself in the music she had brought with her. Aelita settled down next to her, taking the CODE XANA magazine Sissi had bought and began reading.

About an hour later, Aelita was pulled away from her reading by the cell phone ringing.

"Hi," came Jeremie's voice.

"Hi yourself," replied Aelita, "I was just thinking about calling you, but Raoul wouldn't leave me alone."

"Ha, ha; very funny," Jeremie replied, "unless that's your pet name for Sissi and you have something you want to tell me."

"As a matter of fact, I do," Aelita said, then paused a moment for dramatic effect. She smiled when she heard the faint _gulp_ on the other end of the connection, then said, "I've got some more information on this CODE XANA movie."

"Oh, thank God!" Jeremie blurted out, causing the pink haired girl to giggle.

"Gotcha," she chided, then went on, "seriously, whatever this is, it's been going on for months now. Sissi bought a magazine about the upcoming movie, and it's got pictures of us in Lyoko."

"You mean computer images of characters that look like us and Lyoko," Jeremie said.

"No, Jeremie. I mean pictures, of us. In Lyoko. I even recognized one of them, it was from a while back. Remember the big tank?"

"Yeah."

"The pictures were from then. Jeremie, it looks like someone was standing on Lyoko with a camera, photographing everything that happened, from XANA's viewpoint."

"This could be bad," Jeremie said, "if people found out about Lyoko..."

"It's even worse," Aelita interrupted, "Sissi also said she saw Kankerlats running around he mall where she went. It was part of a publicity stunt, but they were there all the same. I'm worried; where's XANA getting all this power?"

"From us," Jeremie said, "we tracked down the mysterious towers your father found. They aren't towers; at least, not towers on Lyoko. We found energy conduits running off to the edge of Lyoko. There's some kind of device mounted on the outside that they're connected to, and it's beaming quantum energy from Lyoko to another location. The drain isn't serious, right now, but that could change at any moment. I'd almost ask you to come back, but I know that's not possible. In any case, watch yourself. See if you can find out more about this CODE XANA thing. We're working on this end to sever the connections XANA has set up, and I'll see if there's something I can do to protect you from here."

"Jeremie, I'm okay," Aelita said, "except for being startled this morning, nothing bad has happened."

"I'm just worried," Jeremie replied, "Saturday night, you're going to be doing this performance with Kankerlats and someone that looks like William running around stage. A performance, I might add, for a movie that casts a character that looks an awful lot like you as the villain. Aren't you supposed to die in the end?"

"Oh, you're right."

"Then, be careful," came Jeremie's admonition, "just because the plan calls for it happening Saturday night doesn't mean XANA won't try something before then."


	5. Interesting Conversations

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

"And the word around London today is all about these bug creatures that have been sighted in area malls. They've been seen all about, scuttling up to people, dancing around; it's crazy! And just what is this CODE XANA, anyways? We've been trying to contact someone, anyone, who has any knowledge of this, but no one's volunteered any information so far. I asked one of the operators of the bugs and was told that there would be an announcement forthcoming. All they were doing at the moment was building interest in the movie, and all my questions would be answered later on."

"Well, let me tell you something; I'll be extremely interested in what the spokesperson has to say when they finally speak up. From what I've seen, there's a real frenzy building up for this CODE XANA thing. This is Rob Snavely, and that's London This Morning."

* * *

"C'mon, pinkie! Sway a little more!"

Randle Thorne's voice cut across the stage like a knife, causing Aelita to jump and jumble the settings on her mixing board, ruining the mix she was trying out.

"Whoa! Whoa! Cut, everyone!" Thorne hollered, "cor blimey, girl, what's the matter with you! It's not like I'm asking you t' strip, but could you at least move a little?"

Aelita looked at the man with a mixture of anger and embarrassment.

"I'm sorry," Aelita began, but was cut off.

"I'll agree with that, you are one sorry bird!" Thorne then continued, "I was hoping to get through this in a couple of hours, but the way you're wallowing, it's going to be days!"

Aelita couldn't take it any more; she threw down her headphones and ran off the stage.

"That's right, sweetie! Run off and cry to mummy!"

Jim Morales had heard just about enough. He had been watching the rehearsal from backstage and witnessed the whole incident. This Thorne character had been on Aelita's back from the moment she walked in this morning, and nothing she did was good enough for him; not how she looked, how she moved, or how she worked the board. And rather than try and help her to improve, he would berate and belittle her in front of everyone.

Jim walked up to Thorne, who was still going on about Aelita, and tapped him on his shoulder.

"What the 'ell do you want!" he snapped.

"Uh, Mr. Thorne, could I talk to you a second," Jim asked, sounding like an oaf.

"About what! I haven't got time for this with babies throwing temper tantrums and..."

"It'll only take a second, sir. Just step over this way."

Jim started walking off stage. Randle, still kvetching about things, followed along. Jim led him to a secluded corner then stopped.

"Alright, just what do you want, I'm a busy..."

He was cut off when Jim grabbed the man by his shirt and slammed him into the wall. Randle Thorne wasn't all that tall compared to Jim, but the PE teacher held him so they met eye to eye.

"Now you listen to me!" he growled, "what you're doing to that girl is uncalled for and it will stop!"

"Bugger off!" Thorne shouted, only to have Jim grind his hands deeper into his shirt, threatening to rip out hunks of flesh.

"If there's one thing I absolutely can't stand is a bully," Jim said, "you either change your tone or I'm going to beat you three ways: hard, fast and continuously. When I'm done with you, the only thing that will beat you to the hospital will be the front end of the ambulance you'll be riding in!"

"You can't touch me!" Thorne objected, "I'm the sponsor of this show! You keep this up and I'll pull out! Then where will you be?"

"At my solicitor's office, making ready to sue you for breach of contract," came Sophie's voice, "Jim, put him down."

Jim turned and looked at the woman who just joined them, noticed her look, and complied.

"Certainly, Soph," Jim said with a smile.

"I just ran into Aelita," Sophie continued, "and she is more than a little upset. And after hearing what has been going on here, I don't say as I blame her! You may be able to harass your people like that and get away with it, but you cannot with mine! Aelita is only thirteen years old and she is not a performer! Now, whatever your problems are with the rehearsal, I expect you to be more civil in your reprimands. She is more than willing to work with you, but she is not willing to be your whipping post. Simon is with her now, calming her down. When she comes back, we'll start up again. And if you tear into her like that again, I'll see to it that your boyfriend weeps at your loss!"

Jim, satisfied that Sophie had settled the issue, let go of Randle. The man slumped down to the floor and watched the two walk off.

As they left, Sophie was saying, "I'm very sorry about this, Jim. If I knew he was that kind of idiot, I never would have agreed to do this..."

* * *

Aelita sat in a chair in one of the dressing rooms, drying her eyes out. She ran past Sophie when she left the stage and almost collided with Simon, who was coming after her. he took her and led her to the room she was in now, and sat across from her as she pulled herself back together.

"Rough morning," he said.

"Yeah, you could say that," Aelita replied, choking back a sob.

"Look, don't take it personally," Simon said, "some people think that yelling and insulting are the only ways to motivate people. Also, he's been in entertainment long enough that everyone knows that's the way he is. Though I will say you were the only one he was chewing out today. I saw more than a couple of the dancers flub up and he said nothing. And that Harry Mudd chump was moving worse that Thorne said you were!"

Aelita gave the man a wan smile. "If you're trying to cheer me up, it's working," she told him.

"Yes I am," he replied, "and I'm glad. Listen, I figure Sophie tore him a new one by now, so how 'bout we straighten you up and get back out there."

"Okay," she finally said, "I just wanted to try out the mix of the music, and all he wanted was for me to dance."

"Well, it was move, actually," Simon said, "just do your best with the mixing for now, and try to concentrate on your movement for the routine. Later on, we'll sit down and mix a little. Now, you know he'll want to be in on that, right?"

"No," Aelita replied, "but you'll be with me, so it won't be so bad."

"You're absolutely right."

The rest of the morning rehearsal went better. Aelita moved more like Randle wanted, and Randle kept his sharp tongue sheathed. The entire time, he was under the watchful eye of Simon, Sophie and Jim Morales.

* * *

Lunch time at Kadic was the usual chaos. Jeremie, Odd and Ulrich had gotten their trays and sat down to eat when they saw Yumi enter the room and waive at them. Ulrich waived back as she got into the lunch line.

"So, how's your third Aelita-less day going," Odd asked.

"Don't start in on me," Jeremie snapped, "I was up all night working on the power problem."

"So, can we just blow them up and call it done?" Odd asked.

"No," was the reply, "if we cut the conduits, it could seriously damage Lyoko. And we still don't know what that cube thing on the outer shell is doing. For all we know, if the power's cut, it'll explode!"

"Gee, what's the tension all about?" Yumi asked as she walked up and joined them.

"Einstein's wound up because he hasn't had his princess fix in a while," Odd joked.

The others started to laugh until they noticed that Jeremie wasn't.

"Joke about it if you want to, but it's no laughing matter!" With that, Jeremie got up and left, his lunch uneaten.

"So, you're not going to eat that?" Odd shouted at the receding genius.

Jeremie stomped out of the lunchroom and off the campus. He went to about the only place where he could be alone with his thoughts at the moment, the factory. He entered the sewers, got his scooter, and made his way there. It was only when he had ensconced himself in the main console's chair that he let his frustrations out.

"They just don't get it! We're sitting on a time bomb that I don't know how to defuse! And when it blows, Aelita will..."

He couldn't finish. He just hung his head down and sobbed, beating his fist against the arm of the chair every now and then.

"Lack of sleep tends to muddle your thinking," came Franz Hopper's voice, not from the console speakers, but from directly behind the boy. Jeremie whirled around in the seat to see Franz Hopper standing there.

"You spent all last night beating your head against the wall, trying to solve this problem," he said, "and all you've managed to do is hurt your head. You should have called it quits when I asked you to."

"And if I had, I'd be where we were last night right now!" Jeremie shouted, "the concert is Saturday, and if we can't figure something out, Aelita will be dead!"

Franz walked up and put his hands on the back of the console chair.

"I've known what we must do since last night," Franz said, "and while you were flailing away, I was writing what I needed. What we must do is modify the tower control system to utilize the memory structures that the power distribution system uses. That way, at least I'll have a little more information on what XANA is doing."

"But we would have to shut Lyoko down to do that!" Jeremie exclaimed, "you would be deactivated!"

"No, we won't," Franz replied, "I can shut the towers down, implement the new code, then bring the towers back up. During the outage, XANA can't access the towers to do anything on Earth. The down side is the scanners will also be down. And there's one more thing."

"What?"

"I'll need someone on Lyoko, in Carthage, to assist."

Jeremie thought for a moment. "This will work?" he asked.

"As best as I can tell, yes."

"Then let me set up a delayed transfer, and I'll join you in a moment."

* * *

After lunch, Aelita and Simon sat down and began testing mixes of the new music. Like Simon had said, Randle Thorne was there too, offering suggestions in the form of demands, and generally micromanaging the whole process.

"Look, can't you make it more sinister?" he asked at one point.

Aelita changed a couple of settings on the mixing board and replayed the music.

"That's almost got it," Randle said, "but it sounds like something is missing."

"Well, when I first heard the tracks," Aelita said, "there was some kind of scratching noise in it. I ran it through a waveform analyzer and found a garbage signal in all of the tracks. It didn't add anything to the song, so I deleted it."

"Truth be told," Simon said, "it doesn't sound any different to me. I don't think it's a big deal."

Randle looked like he wanted to say something more, but kept his peace.

They continued on for another hour, then Randle announced that he had to leave.

"I've got just a few more things to see about before the performance," he said, "and I have to make sure those security types didn't bust anything. Blimey, don't those blokes realize how much some of this stuff costs?"

With that, the Thorne in Aelita's side left.

"Well, that went a whole lot better," Simon said, "now, tell me; was that crap you gave him about the garbage noise true?"

"Yes, actually," Aelita said, "although I wasn't the one who found it, Jeremie did."

"I sense that you're missing him," Simon observed.

Aelita just gave him a small smile. "I guess," she said, "in some ways though, it's been really good to be away from him and all my friends. But in others..."

"Yeah, I hear ya," Simon said, "one of the things you're going to learn is that there are a lot of people in the world like Randle Thorne. Not only that, but a lot of times they are going to be in positions to make your life a living hell, and they'll do it just like that. You're going to have to grow a thicker skin to be able to deal with jerks like him, and you're also going to have to learn to look for opportunities to screw him over real good. Sometimes, the only Justice you can get in the world is Justice you make for yourself. Now, let's get back to your set."

* * *

Jeremie virtualized himself directly into Sector Five. He left the Arena, made his way to the elevator, and took it to the terminal at the edge of the complex. Franz Hopper was waiting for him, his spheres whirling slowly about themselves.

"I've got everything set up, Jeremie," he said, "look everything over, then I'll walk you through the procedure. If everything goes according to plan, we should be done in ten minutes."

"And if not?" the genius asked.

"Then all bets are off. Now get started."

Jeremie checked over what Franz had done. He even took a few minutes to examine the code that the man had modified.

"Say, what are these?" he asked at one point.

"Those are the reason why I want to implement this code," Franz replied, "those variables hold information about the tower, including a pointer to a detailed record of the tower's configuration, and what it is doing at any given moment. You'll notice the variable named 'Node'?"

"Yeah."

"That's the address of the physical server where the tower resides. I may be able to use that to get a physical location of the computer XANA is using. And something else."

"What?"

"If XANA used the same code that you used in building his replicas, I may well be able to take over and use them."

Jeremie's eyes lit up at that statement. "Then what are we waiting for, let's go!"

The shutdown of the tower subsystem went without a hitch, and the towers and scanners were back online in five minutes.

"Oh, this is wonderful, Jeremie!" Franz said, "I think XANA has been using this connection he made to access Lyoko! There's not only quantum power conduits, there's also network connections. He's using the power conduits as network cables, and using the quantum energy fluctuations to communicate!"

"Like the Internet over power lines?"

"Exactly! And what's even better is that communication line runs both ways. He can talk with us, and we now can talk with him. I've got some exploring to do, so you just head on back and try and enjoy the rest of your day. Definitely by Saturday, I should have something very interesting to say to XANA."

* * *

Sissi had spent another day feeling like a fifth wheel. That morning, she asked Randle Thorn if she could have a small part in the final production, and he rudely dismissed her. She later saw him tear into Aelita, and saw her run off. She also saw Jim and Sophie's confrontation with the man, and the result.

Sissi Delmas really didn't mind all that much that Aelita "Mrs. Einstein" Stones was taken down a notch or two, but she was glad that Thorne had his ego deflated a little.

After lunch, she approached Thorne again with a different request.

"Mr. Throne, could you give me a couple of minutes to interview you about the movie?" she asked.

"Look, sweetheart, I really don't have time to play Brenda Starr with you," he responded, "we both know your article is for crap and you're going to have to bat your eyes at daddy and be extra special to him when you get back to get out of whatever jam you're in. So, why don't you just do the both of us a favor and get out of my sight!"

With that, Throne turned away and started shouting at one of the dancers. Sissi turned in a huff and walked out.

_What am I supposed to do now?_ she thought to herself, _I was hoping to get some more background on this movie, but now I don't know where to turn next._

She thought longer as she walked.

_Oh, yes I do._

With that, she got out her cell phone and dialed.

"Herve, yeah, it's me," she said, "no, I don't have time for that! Listen, I need everything you can find out about a movie called CODE XANA. Yeah, they're going crazy about it here in London, and I've never heard of it. Find out everything you can and email me the results. I want to see something by bedtime. What? No, I'm not going to call you back tonight; get a grip on yourself! On second thought, don't touch anything while thinking about me!"

With that, Sissi ended the call, pleased with herself that she found a solution to her information gap.

Meanwhile, back at Kadic, Herve Pichot stared at his cellphone, trying to understand what Sissi meant by that last remark. He finally shrugged it off as irrelevant and set off for his room. She had actually called him to ask her to do her a favor, and he wasn't going to rest until he had everything he could find on the Web about this code zanna thing.

* * *

"Alright! That's a wrap!" Randle Thorne called out.

All of the dancers sighed in relief at being saved from further abuse, and left to change and get back to life. The only one who remained behind was Harry Mudd, who walked over to the choreographer.

"What is it, Mudd," Randle said, "if you're going to kvetch about the routine, you can forget it. Truth be told, you need to put forth a little more effort, you've hardly broken a sweat!"

Harry's eyes glowed for a moment, and Thorne shut up. The Mark of XANA appeared in his eyes, and he waited for orders.

"How are preparations going?" Harry asked.

"Proceeding as planned," Thorne replied, "we have one hundred Kankerlats out in the field right now, and another thousand are in storage."

"And the Krab?"

"Ready as well. The palace security people have examined all of the units, including the Krab, and have found nothing unusual. When do you want it in place?"

"Saturday. Keep it under wraps; I want it to be a surprise for our princess."

"Anything else?"

"No, continue on as before. I want Aelita kept off balance as much as possible. I want to smell her fear from my place on the stage when the performance comes."

"What about the Delmas girl?"

"She's not a concern. Oh, have you heard anything about the arrangements for the Queen?"

"Not other than what was expected. She will be seated in a box over there," Randle pointed to a box seat about half way up the auditorium, "and she will be heavily guarded. Also, Aelita found the signal you implanted in the music and removed it."

"That was expected," Harry/XANA replied, "she found that segment, but she didn't find the ones I really wanted to hide. At some point in the set, she will mix the right segments and give us the opening we need to proceed. I have implanted the sequence in your memory; you will see to it that she is guided to the correct mix; understood?"

"Yes, master."


	6. Some Things Are Worse Than Death

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

The next morning, Thursday, Sissi asked to borrow Aelita's laptop. Her roommate readily agreed, and the principal's daughter took it and logged on to Kadic Academy's Student Website. She entered her userid and password, then checked her email. As she hoped, there was an email from Herve:

_You DID say that this code zanna thing was all over London? I've spent all night looking, and haven't found a thing!_

_Miss you, Herve_

"Well, you're not gonna miss me when I get through with you, nincompoop!" Sissi vented.

Herve was her only hope of finding anything out about this movie thing... well; not her _only_ hope...

Aelita was still in the shower, so Sissi went over and picked up the girl's cell phone. She quickly scanned the programmed numbers, noticing some interesting entries as she did. She finally found the number she wanted, copied it down and put the phone back.

Just then, Aelita came out of the bathroom, smiling, and got dressed for the day. Just before she walked out, she asked, "coming down to breakfast, Sissi?"

"I'll be along in a minute," Sissi replied, "I need to do something first."

* * *

Jeremie was just walking out of his dorm room when his cell phone rang.

"Morning, princess," he answered.

"Well, I wonder what Mrs. Einstein would say if she heard you calling me that?" came Sissi's voice in his ear.

"Wha! What's going on?" he asked.

"I got your number from Aelita," Sissi continued, "I... need to ask you for a favor."

"What is it?"

"I need everything you can find out about this movie that's going on up here, you know, CODE XANA?"

Jeremie just about tripped when he heard those words.

"What do you mean?"

"CODE XANA is this movie that everyone's going gaga over here in London," Sissi said, "Aelita's doing some kind of act for it Saturday night, and I want to know more about it for my article. All I've got is this stupid magazine, and it doesn't really tell me anything, like who's acting in it, who's directing, or which company is even producing it."

"Why don't you ask Herve to look it up for you," Jeremie asked.

"I did," was the reply, "he couldn't find anything."

Jeremie found that surprising. Herve should have found something, even if he spelled XANA z-a-n-n-a.

"I'll tell you what," he finally said, "I'll take a look over lunch to see if I can find something. Where do you want me to send it?"

"My school email box," she replied, "thanks, Jeremie; I really appreciate this."

* * *

The morning's stage rehearsal wasn't near the ordeal it was yesterday. Aelita got a motion down that seemed to please Thorne, though it made her feel at times like she was doing something no girl her age should be doing. Seemingly pleased, the taskmaster let the girl off, and she turned her attention to mixing the tracks for the performance. She went through what she had already worked up, then started trying new combinations. At one point, Randle Thorne stopped and snapped at her, "go back to that last part!"

Aelita was startled by the sudden command, but stopped the playback and went back to the point he requested, then started again.

"Wait! Add a little more of that other track!"

"This one?" she queried, mixing what she thought he wanted.

"No, the other one," he responded.

Aelita reset and tried the other track.

"Perfect! That's what I've been looking for!" he crowed, "can you leave those two mixed in and up front, putting the rest in the background?"

"Like this?" Aelita set the board and the music played. It sounded so compelling that everyone listening stopped what they were doing. Aelita was too intent on the board to notice the effect around her. When the tracks finished, she looked up. Randle Throne's face was beaming.

"Perfect! That's exactly what I want!" he cried, "Aelita, you're a genius! I take back every nasty thing I said about you; you've given me just what I wanted for the performance Saturday night."

Aelita was taken aback at the sudden praise. All she could do was smile and blush.

"Make sure you do whatever it is you do to save that setup," Throne continued, "I want just that when Saturday comes around."

Aelita saved the sequence, then stopped. _Why was he so pleased?_ she asked herself, _I know he's up to something, and I just gave him what he wanted._

Suspicious, she cut a copy of the mix to a CD. She'd have Jeremie take a look at it later on.

* * *

Jeremie was sitting at his desk, searching the Web for CODE XANA. He, like Herve before him, was getting nothing, other than frustrated. The blond genius didn't know his rival's hacking skills, but Jeremie hacked into private networks related to the entertainment industry, and found nothing there either.

"Now, that's strange," he muttered to himself, "if this is as big an item as Aelita says it is, there should be some mention of it somewhere on the Web; the movie doesn't even have a web site!"

Frustrated, he turned to another search: anything he could find on Randle Thorne, producer/choreographer. That search turned up more. Mr. Throne, it seems, was indeed a choreographer and producer, but only of small time, way off Broadway stage productions. And he had never worked with the kind of special effects that Aelita was reporting. This set off alarms in Jeremie's mind, so he hacked into some law enforcement databases, and found a Randle Thorne who had served several years in an English prison for theft by deception. And, more alarmingly, he was on a watch list as a suspected anti-government activist.

"If he's all that, then why is the Queen coming to the concert?" Jeremie asked. Just then, his cell phone rang.

"Hello, Jeremie speaking."

"That was rather cold," came Aelita's voice. Jeremie immediately smiled at hearing it. "What's wrong?" she asked next.

"I got a surprise wakeup call from Sissi this morning," he replied, "I didn't know you two were close enough to swap phone numbers."

"I didn't give her your number," she replied.

"Well, it doesn't matter anyway. She asked me to do some digging on this CODE XANA stuff, and, get this, there's absolutely no information about it on the Web, not even a website. What's more, Randle Throne is a convicted criminal, and an anti-government activist. Aelita, is the Queen still attending Saturday?"

"As far as I know, yes."

"Then tell Sissi I've emailed what I found like she asked, and to tell the security people. I just don't understand why they're continuing on with this, if they know who Thorne is."

"We may have another problem, Jeremie," Aelita said, "I just got praised by Thorne just now."

"Well, you are good at what you do; maybe even he sees that."

"No," she replied, "I was doing some test mixes for the routine Saturday and he stopped me at one point, had me make a couple of adjustments, then said that it was perfect. Jeremie, he's been on my case since this started, and all of a sudden I'm a genius?"

"Well, you are."

"You know what I mean, cheesehead. I uploaded the mix he wants me to use to the protected area of the supercomputer. Could you scan it again?"

"Yeah, this afternoon after I talk with your father. He's been happy as a clam since we rebooted the tower subsystem yesterday."

"What?"

"Your father rewrote the tower subsystem to utilize the memory table the power distribution system uses to identify towers. We now have the ability to monitor what XANA's doing with the energy he's stealing from Lyoko, and we might be able to turn the tables on him. That's what I need to talk to him about."

"That's great!" Aelita said, "maybe we could stop XANA before he strikes this time."

"I hope so. How's everything else going?"

"Good. I miss everybody, though."

"Well, everybody misses you, too. When will you be back?"

"Monday. We have another performance on Sunday, this one without the special production Throne is inflicting on us. After the performance, we pack up and Simon drives all night to get us back to Kadic by morning."

"Well, I've got to get going," Jeremie finally said, "you take care, and I'll see you Monday."

"Bye."

"I love you princess," Jeremie said after the call ended.

* * *

The activity for the afternoon was a full blown, on camera interview. Jim had set up the camera in one of the green rooms back stage, and now Sissi and Aelita were sitting in comfortable chairs preparing for the take.

"Sissi, I spoke with Jeremie just before lunch, "Aelita said as Sophie was applying a last little bit of makeup to her face, "he said that he emailed what you requested."

"Good," was all she said.

"You know," Aelita then said, "if you wanted his phone number, you could have asked me."

"Sorry," Sissi replied, "old habits and all."

"Are you two ready?" Jim asked.

"Yes," was the reply in unison.

"Okay, we're rolling in three, two, one, now!"

"So, tell me, Aelita; are you excited?" came Sissi's first question. She delivered it smoothly, with just the right amount of interested detachment.

"Yes I am," Aelita replied, "it's been a rough week leading up to Saturday, but I'm looking forward to it."

"Just how did you get interested in mixing?"

"Well, last year, a friend brought a mixing board to school to be fixed. I manged to repair it for him, and he showed me how to use it. I liked what I made with it, and so did a lot of other kids. Since then, I've been hooked."

"And you got your break with the SubDigitals?"

"Yes. Chris was touring our school, looking for mixing talent, and I submitted an entry. He liked what he heard and had me do an audition with two other potentials. They liked what they heard and picked me."

And so the interview went. Standing behind the camera, Jim silently chuckled to himself.

_Sissi is really getting into this,_ he thought, _and she's really good, too. She might have found her career in life. I'll have to tell Jean-Pierre when I talk to him next._

* * *

After the interview finished, Sissi thanked Aelita for her help. The pink haired girl nodded and said she was heading back to the hotel room for a bit, then left.

"Elizabeth, you did a very good job just then," Jim said, "now we need to edit the sequence and get it into shape for airing."

"My name is Sissi, and you know about this stuff?" Sissi asked incredulously.

"Elizabeth is a sign of respect," Jim replied, "and yes, I do know a little about film editing. Not all the tales I tell about my past are tall ones, and there are some things I really don't talk about."

Meanwhile, Aelita left the auditorium and caught a ride back to the hotel with Ben, who said he and the other band members were going out with some of the dancers. He dropped her off at the main entrance, waiving goodbye as he left.

Aelita was lost in her thoughts as she walked up to her room, so she didn't notice the shadow detach itself from a wall and follow her. The girl didn't realized she was being stalked at all until a hand clamped on to her mouth, and she was pulled into an empty room.

"Hello, princess; miss me?" came the voice of William Dunbar.

* * *

"The information I'm getting is fantastic!" Franz Hopper told Jeremie.

Jeremie had gone to the factory after classes that day to check up on the professor, and to check that file Aelita uploaded.

"I think I have a tentative location of the other computer," he went on, "I think it's in southern England, maybe Bristol or Bath."

"That would make sense," Jeremie said, "since we think whatever's going to happen will happen in London."

"Something else," Franz said, "XANA has some kind of massive attack planned. It looks like he'll be controlling something like a thousand specters or more when he launches."

"Does he have enough power for that?"

"Evidently. Another thing too, most of those specters will either be small or low powered; that may explain some of it. There only seems to be three high power specters in use, although I'm sensing four online at this moment."

"Is there any way to disrupt them?"

"Not without tipping our hand too soon. Now, about that polymorphic specter you used to impersonate me, is it still available?"

"Yeah," Jeremie replied, "writing it gave me some ideas for later on."

"Well, I've got an idea for you," Franz said, "what about modifying it so the user doesn't have to wear it, but they control it with their thoughts."

"Sounds interesting," Jeremie said, "go on."

"Well..."

* * *

William Dunbar dragged the struggling girl into the room, a cleaning closet. He pushed her against the back wall, pressing her into the mops and brooms. His hand was still clamped on her mouth, his other hand pressing into her chest. Aelita struggled and tried to escape, but he was too much.

He leaned in and said, "how have you been enjoying your last days on earth?"

Aelita could only stare wide-eyed at him.

"Is Yumi feeling better? I know she wasn't doing to well the last time I saw her." William leaned even closer, touching his forehead to Aelita's. "Umm, I love that smell, the smell of fear. Yumi had it when I was playing with her," he said, "it intoxicated me, made me rush. I know now that was a mistake, so I won't make it again."

Aelita managed to work her mouth free of William's hand.

"We already know about your stealing quantum energy from Lyoko," she said, "Jeremie is working on a way to stop you even as we speak."

"Even if he finds out just how I'm doing it, he won't be able to stop me," William said, "he would have to destroy and rebuild Lyoko in order to do it."

"He'll find a way; he always does."

"Yes, he does, after some time. But time is the one thing he doesn't have, Aelita. We both know that it's happening Saturday night, and there's nothing you can do, short of running, to stop me. And even if you run, it will only delay the inevitable. There's also these poor, stupid Brits to take into account. Saturday night marks the beginning of my campaign against the world, and the Throne of England will be my first prize!"

Then he looked into Aelita's eyes. "You know, being inside a human body provides me with such unique inputs. Touch, taste, smell. And delving into William's mind has given me some new insights into humanity; insights I want to explore further."

With that, the hand on her face went from clutching to caressing, while his other hand began roughly groping her chest. He pressed closer as she struggled even harder.

"This hunger I feel," he said, "the boy has felt it many times, especially around Yumi. A longing, almost an itch at the back of the mind; something that lurks and prowls, waiting for its opportunity. I want to feel what happens when it is let loose. I want to know what you will do when it comes upon you. I want to hear his wails as I satiate this desire he both loves and loathes. My only quandary is whether to indulge now, before you die; or while I kill you, or afterwards."

He pressed himself even harder against her, crushing her into the wall. She turned her face away from his as he came close and nuzzled her cheek, then ran his tongue along her jawline, from her chin to her ear.

"Maybe I'll do all three; just in case there's something unique about each experience," he whispered in her ear.

Now he began to tear her shirt off, partially exposing her. Aelita struggled, fought wildly. In her mind, a new realization dawned, that there were some things worse than death. There were some things that could be taken from her, and never retrieved. And there were people out there who delighted in robbing girls of just that.

William eased back. "You struggle so hard, princess," he said, "what's the matter? It doesn't hurt, much. And it's something you will do, and even enjoy doing. Could it be that I'm not the one you want to do it with?"

William then morphed into Jeremie. "Am I more acceptable now?" he asked with Jeremie's voice.

Aelita never even thought; her hand closed around something and she swung it at the image of Jeremie. It connected and he was knocked back a bit, but not enough.

"I can smell your fear from here, Aelita," Jeremie's voice sneered, "it's more exciting than the sight of your breasts!"

Aelita, mad with fear, started flinging whatever she could lay her hands on. XANA/Jeremie put up his hands to block the projectiles while he waited her out. Quickly, she ran out of weapons.

"Stay away from me!" she screamed, crying now, "don't touch me!"

"Too late, princess," XANA/Jeremie cooed, "just relax and it will all be over soon. Be nice to me and maybe I'll let you live beyond this weekend. Of course, if I do that, we would have to come to some kind of arrangement."

He advanced on her again, this time to take his prize. Aelita slumped down to the floor crying.

"Aelita, is that you?" came a voice from the hallway.

XANA turned and looked behind him. "Coitus interruptus," he said, "well, maybe next time. Remember, princess, the clock runs out on Saturday. Pleasant dreams until then."

With that, XANA became a cloud of smoke and disappeared.

* * *

Sissi sat with Jim and Sophie as he queued up the video he shot of her interview with Aelita. She saw that he had deftly turned the camera from her to Aelita with each exchange. Now, he was going through and capturing each little segment into a separate video file. He explained that this would give the TV people more flexibility in preparing their segment. He would keep the original available, just in case they wanted it too.

"Jim, I want to thank you for helping me," Sissi said when he was finished, "I don't know where I'd be without your help."

"Sissi, that's why I'm here," Jim replied, "that's why all the teachers at school are here. That's even why your father's here."

Sophie, who had been a silent witness to the exchange, said, "you know, Elizabeth, journalism is a fine career. From what I've seen, you might do well as a reporter."

"I don't know," Sissi replied, "I still haven't found out all that much about this CODE XANA movie, and I'm starting to think that something's not right there."

"Which is the mark of a good journalist," Sophie said, "and I think you're right. The thing is, I just don't know what Thorne's game is."

"Well, I think I'm going back to my room," Sissi said, "maybe one of my other sources has come up with something. If I find out anything, I'll let you know."

"I'll drive you back," Sophie said, "I've got a few more things to go over before Saturday."

"And I'm off to join the boys," Jim said, "they're meeting some of the dancers for a party."

"Jim, aren't you too old for that kind of thing?" Sophie asked.

"I'll be too old when I'm dead," Jim replied, "besides, I don't allow myself to cut loose all that often. I'm due for a little Jim-time."

With that, Jim bid the ladies farewell and set off to find whatever it was he was looking for. Sophie just shook her head.

"Men," was her only comment.

The two girls quickly returned to the hotel and went up to their rooms. Sophie's room was on a different floor than Sissi's and Aelita's, so the woman got off before Sissi did. The elevator arrived at Sissi's floor, and she got off. As soon as the door closed, the girl heard a commotion coming from somewhere on the floor. She heard something like someone throwing things, then Aelita's voice shouting, "stay away from me!" Sissi ran in the direction of the shouting.

"Aelita, is that you?" she called out.

She quickly saw that a door was ajar, and that the noise was coming from inside. She opened the door to a cleaning closet. In the back, Aelita was slumped to the floor, her shirt ripped open and her chest exposed. She was crying and hysterical.

"What the heck is going on here?!"

* * *

Sissi helped Aelita to their room then called Sophie and told her what happened. The woman told her to stay with Aelita while she called hotel security. They quickly called the police, and within the hour, London bobbies had arrived to take Aelita's statement.

The police were professionally detached as they questioned Aelita about the attack. She gave them William's description, which Sophie misinterpreted as the dancer Harry Mudd. A quick call determined that Mr. Mudd was at a party with other dancers and members of the band, and had been there since rehearsals broke up earlier in the afternoon.

Sophie was pacing back and forth, using language a lady should never use in public.

"I should have never trusted that so-and-so," she muttered to herself, "I _knew_ there was something fishy about this setup, but no! I had to accept the gig. It would be a great plug for the band with this tie-in!"

Aelita, in the meantime, was sitting on the bed, wrapped up in a blanket to keep shock from setting in. Sissi sat next to her with an arm around her for comfort. Sissi had a pretty good idea about what almost happened in that closet, and her dislike of Aelita did not extend to rape.

"I don't care what the consequences," Sophie finally said, "I'm pulling us out. I'm probably going to lose my shirt for it, but I won't keep you in harm's way a minute longer!"

"No," Aelita suddenly said, "don't do that. For one thing, it won't matter. This is something that goes beyond the SubDigitals. My running away won't prevent it from happening again."

"That's an admirable sentiment," Sophie replied, "but I still can't allow you to remain here. It would be irresponsible of me to do so."

"Sophie, I'll be okay," Aelita said, with a little more confidence in her voice, "besides, with all of the security around the concert, no one will dare try anything."

"I don't know," Sophie said, then thought a moment. "Alright. But, from now on, you don't go anywhere alone. Someone stays with you whenever you're out. And by someone, I mean an adult. When you're at the auditorium, you don't go wandering off alone; either Simon, Jim or myself goes with you. And that goes for you too, Sissi."

"What? Why me?" Sissi exclaimed.

"Just because Aelita was attacked doesn't mean you aren't a target," Sophie replied, "I'll tell you right now, this goes against my better judgment. But, it's only a couple more days."

"Ma'am," the police officer interrupted, "we'll be keeping a close watch of the hotel and the venue. And we'll still be talking to this Harry Mudd fellow. Even if he didn't do it, he may know something."

* * *

Finally, all of the hubbub died down and everyone left. Sophie insisted that the girls take dinner in their room, and not to go out anywhere. When they were alone, Aelita slumped down on the bed and threatened to cry again.

"If you're scared, why did you say you'd stay?" Sissi asked.

"Because it wouldn't make any difference," Aelita replied, "I know who it was, and he would track me down anywhere I went."

"Who is it?"

"No one you would know."

"Aelita," Sissi said with all seriousness, "does this have something to do with whatever your gang does? Are you into something dangerous?"

"No," Aelita replied, not quite looking at Sissi, "this is something personal."

Sissi turned back to the desk and Aelita's laptop. _In a pig's eye,_ she thought to herself. She logged into her school mailbox and saw the email from Jeremie:

_Sissi,_

_Herve was right, there is nothing on the Web about CODE XANA. Not only that, there's nothing about it on any of the more private networks related to entertainment. What's more, Randle Thorne is a convicted criminal and a potential anti-government activist. Below are the links I found that you can access. You had better let the authorities know about this._

_Jeremie_

Sissi got out her cell phone and dialed.

"Hello?" came Jeremie's voice.

"I just got your email," Sissi replied, "what do you mean about 'links I can access?'"

"Let's just say I went to some places good little girls shouldn't be going and leave it at that," Jeremie said.

"Speaking of good little girls," Sissi said, "you had better give your good little girl a call. She's had a rough time of it today and could stand to hear a friendly voice."

"What happened, Sissi," Jeremie demanded.

"It's better if you heard it from her," was the reply, "and go easy on her, it was really bad."

Seconds after Sissi ended her call, Aelita's cell phone rang. Sissi smiled to herself as Aelita answered it.

"Hello? Oh, Jeremie! It was awful..."


	7. Father's Day

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

Friday morning, Sissi woke up to the sensations of pins and needles coming from her right arm. When she opened her eyes, all she saw was a jungle of pink foliage. Startled, she jerked back a little, and the jungle resolved itself into the top of Aelita's head. Her roommate was asleep in her arms, her head cutting off the circulation to Sissi's arm.

_What the heck happened last night?_ Sissi thought to herself. After a seconds pondering, she remembered.

_Aelita talked with Jeremie for quite a while, reliving the attack. Sissi thought she heard some crazy things a couple of times, but put it down to hysteria. Finally, Aelita hung up her cell, put it away, pulled the covers up and fell into a fitful sleep. Sissi sat up a little longer, then settled down for the night herself._

_It seemed like her head had just hit the pillow when Sissi was startled awake by Aelita. The girl was having a bad nightmare, and was thrashing about in her sleep, striking out anywhere and everywhere. She kept moaning, "no, stop!" and, "not Jeremie!" and crying as she wrestled with whatever demons had taken up residence._

_Sissi wanted to wake the girl up, but she had heard someplace that waking up a person having a nightmare was dangerous. Seeing no other alternative, Sissi worked her way through the thrashing limbs and pulled Aelita into a hug. As she struggled, Sissi pulled the girl close, forcing the girl's ear to her chest._

"_Shhh," she said, "it's alright. He's gone, and he won't bother you again. Jeremie's alright, and he's waiting for you back at at school."_

_She stroked Aelita's hair and continued, "think about that, you've been gone an entire week! I'm sure he's been worried about you. Just think what it will be like when you get back. Think about that, Aelita."_

_Sissi's words must have somehow penetrated Aelita's mind, for the girl slowly settled down, finally letting out a long sigh and laying still. And, as Aelita relaxed, so did Sissi. Her final conscious thought was, "I wonder if my mother did this when I was a baby?"_

Sissi was shaken from her reverie by movement. Aelita was slowly waking up and trying to get her bearings. She finally opened her eyes and looked into Sissi's face, a look of bewilderment growing on her own.

Sissi had to act fast to restore the status quo. "Oh Jeremie, show me your love muscle?" she said to the pink haired girl, "just what do you two _do_ when you're alone?"

* * *

The morning rehearsal was tense. Aelita was still upset about yesterday, and seeing Harry Mudd there didn't help any. The man didn't do anything overt, but every now and then, Aelita caught him casting a hungry glance her way. Aelita shuddered and turned her attention back to her performance.

Sissi had chaperon duty today. Her job was to stay with Aelita while she was on stage when one of the adults couldn't. Jim shadowed her, and the rest of the SubDigitals crew kept a wary eye out.

The only one seemingly unaffected by the mood today was Randle Thorne. He was still harassing the dancers, trying to get yet one more ounce of sweat and blood from them. He also started riding Aelita hard again, until Jim took him aside for another 'conversation.' After that, Thorne grumbled, but kept a more civil tongue in his head.

Lunchtime brought a special surprise, Sissi and Aelita's fathers arrived.

"Daddy!" both girls cried out, Aelita in much more surprise than Sissi.

"Sissi, Aelita," Jean-Pierre said in greeting, "Ulrich Stern told us what happened last night. Are you alright, Aelita?"

"Yes, sir, I'm better now," Aelita replied, "Sissi helped a lot with that."

"Oh?" the principal replied, "Elizabeth?"

"It was nothing, daddy," Sissi replied, "what's got you up here?"

"I wanted to make sure Aelita was alright," he replied, "and to make sure you were too."

While Sissi and her father talked, Aelita could only stare at Franz.

"Is something the matter, princess?" he softly said to her, "do you think that I would just leave you here alone?"

"Daddy!" Aelita cried as she threw herself into his arms. She ignored the tingling of the quantum energy that he was projecting and imagined his real arms holding her. After an instant, she let go, and he took her hand to lead her off somewhere where they could be alone.

During the whole reunion, all the rest of the crew just watched. Now that Aelita and her father were moving away to somewhere more private, Sophie separated herself from the group and followed them. Even though she knew that he was her father, and her first meeting with him was nerve wracking, she followed at a discreet distance, just in case something happened.

Franz and Aelita found a couple of chairs and sat down. Aelita scooted as close as she could to her father, since this was the first time since before Lyoko that she had the chance to be close to him.

"I'm glad you came," Aelita said, "but what about XANA?"

"Screw XANA and the horse he rode in on," Franz replied, "I've been separated from you too long not to come when this happened. Are you really alright?"

"Yes, daddy, he didn't hurt me," Aelita replied, "but I'm worried. XANA has never given any indication that he enjoyed what he did. He said he liked the way Yumi smelled the last time, and I smelled the same way."

"XANA is a program that's designed to learn," Franz said, "and it's learning about human vices. Being in possession of Mr. Dunbar for so long has had an effect on him."

"I don't understand."

"William is a teenage boy, who is maturing," Franz said, "just as you are a teenage girl who is maturing. There are hormones and chemicals surging through his body, and they affect his mind."

"That sounds bad, daddy."

"It's not, for the most part. Part of maturing is learning to control the urges that you get. William was still learning that control when XANA took him over. Now XANA has to deal with those issues, and has no idea how to do it."

"How do you learn to control it?"

"Usually by outside correction. Your parents tell you things like, 'a young lady doesn't do things like that,' or 'stop it or you'll go blind.' Society also has rules of conduct, such as the rule forbidding girls and boys from sharing a room at night."

Aelita blushed at that. "We weren't doing anything bad, daddy."

"I know, Aelita, but that's part of the why of things," Franz said, "maybe that time you weren't. The next time may be different."

"But why doesn't XANA react the same way? William surely had the same things told to him."

"Because XANA doesn't acknowledge human authority. If he did, I would have never lost control of him. This also happens to people, too. When they decide that the rules don't apply to them, they do things society thinks is wrong and become criminals."

"But what are we going to do?"

"The best we can Aelita, the best we can."

* * *

"So, you didn't see anything?" Jean-Pierre asked his daughter.

"No, whoever did it was gone by the time I got there," Sissi replied.

"Have you noticed anything strange since then?"

"No. But this whole stage production thing is strange."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the final act of the show is this big production for some movie that I never heard of, CODE XANA. The only thing I know about it is what this Randle Thorne guy says and this magazine I bought the other day. I've asked some friends to snoop on the 'net, and they haven't found a thing, except maybe Mr. Thorne is a crook of some kind."

"From what you're telling me, I should probably insist that you and Aelita return to Kadic," Jean-Pierre said, "it would be irresponsible of me to leave you in this kind of situation, especially after what happened yesterday."

"Daddy, I don't think you should do that," Sissi said, going against every instinct in her, "I'm not saying this because I want Aelita to be a success, or my story to be great. I just think that if we go, things will get worse somehow."

"Are you sure?"

"No, but I'm going with what I said. We need to stay."

"Then I'll stay too. Now, how is your story coming along?"

"Great! Sophie and Jim have been helping me alot! They even say I might be a good journalist..."

* * *

The man walked to the Administration Building and asked where Jeremie Belpois was. The secretary said that he was in the Infirmary under close watch, since he tried to run away from school last night. Michael Belpois smiled when he heard that. He walked over to the Nurses Office and asked to see his son. The nurse, visibly relieved to see Jeremie's father, told him to go right in.

Mr. Belpois walked in and saw Jeremie laying on a cot at the end of the room, three of his friends sitting close by, talking. They all turned and looked at him when he walked in.

"Oh boy, my dad," Jeremie said, "you guys had better wait outside. This isn't going to be pretty."

Jeremie's friends, two boys and a girl, just nodded their heads and left, saying 'hi' to Michael as they left. He walked over to his son and sat down.

"Jeremie, if you wanted to see me, you could have just called," his father said.

"I'm sorry dad," Jeremie replied, "I got carried away."

"Carried away enough that you tried to leave school last night?" his father said, "carried away enough it took two adults to restrain you? Carried away enough that said two adults had to sit watch on you all night to make sure you didn't slip out again? Jeremie, to say the least, this isn't like you. You want to talk about it?"

"I wasn't trying to run away, exactly," Jeremie said, "last night, I spoke with my friend, Aelita Stones."

"Your pink haired girlfriend," Michael said, causing the boy to blush.

"Well, something bad happened to her yesterday," Jeremie continued, "someone attacked her and tried to rape her."

Michael Belpois face went neutral. "Rape?"

"That's what it sounded like to me," Jeremie went on, "after I hung up with her, I kinda lost it. I was trying to get to London to be with her."

"Son, I'm sorry your friend got hurt," Mr. Belpois said, "but you couldn't have done a thing even if you somehow made it all the way to London."

"I know that, now," Jeremie said, "it's just I..."

"Had to be the hero and rush in on your white charger," Michael said, "I understand how you feel, son. If it were your mother, I probably would have done the same thing. But the fact is, you shouldn't have done what you did. When I spoke with the principal last night, he told me he almost expelled you. Striking a teacher is a serious offense."

"I'm sorry, dad; I lost my head," Jeremie said.

"Well, Mr. Delmas understands that. You'll be doing your detention in Mrs. Hertz's care, from what I was told. And I was also told that if something like this happens again, you will be expelled. Did you at least apologize to Mrs. Hertz?"

"I haven't had the chance to yet."

"Well, I suggest you do at the earliest opportunity, and I also suggest you put as much passion into that apology as you did the right cross you gave her last night."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I'll see if I can settle things down a little more," Michael said, "at least get you out of here."

With that, Jeremie's father got up to leave. Before he did, he added, "Jeremie?"

"Yes, dad?"

"You're heart is in the right place. Just try and temper your heart with your head, okay?"

"I'll try."

After he left his son, Mr. Belpois ran into Mrs. Hertz, who was the substitute Dorm Monitor while Jim Morales was gone.

"Mrs. Hertz, I'm Jeremie's father," he said.

"Mr. Belpois, how do you do," Mrs. Hertz replied, "I must say, Jeremie really surprised me last night. I never knew he cared for anything other than his computer."

"It rather surprised me too," Mr. Belpois said, "and, no offense, but I'm rather relieved to find out."

"Me too," the science teacher said, "I somehow pictured Jeremie living in your basement the rest of his life, doing whatever it is he does on that computer of his."

"Well, I'm sorry that he hit you last night," Jeremie's father went on, "love is a new wine to boys like him, and it can sometimes be intoxicating."

"I know," Mrs. Hertz said, "I can remember those days myself. I've already forgiven him, given what I've heard about Aelita."

Then she added, "it will just be a while before I let him know that."

* * *

"Mummy, mummy!" the boy shouted as he ran in his front door, "you wouldn't believe what I saw today!"

"What is it, Timmy?' his mother asked as he gave him a hug.

"Those bug things from Sunday, they're out on the streets!"

"Really?"

"Yeah! I saw them from the bus on the way home today! It seems like they're everywhere!"

"Oh, I'm sure that's not the case," his mother said, "now run along and get ready for supper."

With that, the boy ran up to his room while she turned back to her work.

_I wonder what kind of budget that company has, if they're doing all this?_ she thought to herself.

* * *

"He what?!" both Aelita and Sissi exclaimed when Jean-Pierre told them what had happened at school last night.

"That's right," Mr. Delmas said, "Jeremie tried to leave school grounds last night and make his way up here. Mrs. Hertz caught him and tried to stop him, but Jeremie struck her and ran off. It took both her and Mr. Roulier to subdue him. If Ulrich Stern hadn't told me what happened, I would have expelled him on the spot. As it is, Jeremie's in for a long detention period."

"Ulrich also called me," Franz Stones said, "otherwise, I wouldn't have known until you got back. When I came to school this morning to find out more, I found that Mr. Delmas was driving up here to see what was going on for himself. I asked to come along."

"I'm glad you came, daddy," Aelita said.

"Unfortunately," Mr. Stones said, "I have to return to Paris. As much as I would like to leave my work to subordinates, I can 't."

"Mr. Stones," Mr. Delmas said, "I have decided to remain here for the weekend, just in case."

"Don't have to worry about me," Franz said, "I can make my own way back."

"Daddy, do you have to go?" Aelita asked.

"I'm afraid I do, princess," Franz said, "there's preparations I have to make, about things we've discussed in the past."

Franz stood up and went to leave.

"Daddy, can I see you out?" Aelita asked.

"Of course."

Father and daughter walked to the entrance of the auditorium. Just at the entrance, they stopped and Aelita hugged him.

"Daddy, I wish you could stay."

"I wish I could too, but I've been expending too much energy on maintaining this specter over this distance. With Jeremie unavailable, I can't be away from Lyoko too long. I think he will be available for tomorrow night, but I have to plan for the possibility that he won't. I think I've got a way to stop whatever XANA is planning for tomorrow."

"What is it?"

"I can't tell you now, Aelita. Just keep your cell phone with you tomorrow night. Before the final set, call me. If everything goes according to plan, help should arrive soon after you start performing."


	8. Bugs And Plans

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko, and the television series, Torchwood. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Additional Disclaimer:**Members of the British government and royalty will be depicted from this point in the story forward.. Though most of the persons depicted are fictitious, the character of The Queen is not. However, the depiction of the Queen in this story should not in any way, shape, or form be construed as factual. The author has no knowledge of the Royal Family, and makes no attempt to pretend otherwise. The author intends no disrespect to The Queen, nor to the British Government, by their portrayal in this story.

* * *

"All of London is abuzz with the news! Strange little bug like things have been seen scurrying about Picadilly Square, along Victoria Street and the Enbankment, and even down into Chelsea. And the question on everyone's mind is, what are these things? For that, we go to our correspondent, who is reporting from the venue of tonight's SubDigitals concert."

"Thank you very much. I have with me Mr. Randle Thorne, who is the producer of a new film, CODE XANA. Mr. Thorne, just what are these things?"

"Well, sir, they are remote controlled animatronics that are built to look like some of the little creatures that will be featured in CODE XANA. The display today is meant to build excitement about the film."

"And when will this film be debuting?"

"At this time, I can't go into that; but I promise you that all of your questions will be answered at the press conference I am holding tomorrow morning after the concert. I can tell you that the final set of the SubDigitals performance this evening ties into both the bugs, as you call them, and the upcoming movie. Until tomorrow, I can't say any more."

"Thank you, Mr..."

Aelita clicked the remote and turned the TV off.

"I'll have to see if Jim and I can cover the press conference tomorrow," Sissi said as she primped for the day.

"Yeah, I'd almost like to hear what he has to say," Aelita agreed, "but, somehow, I don't think the press will be covering him in the morning."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing. I've just got a bad feeling."

* * *

Jeremie woke up and fumbled about for his glasses. He was finally released from the Infirmary at 8pm last night, and restricted to his dorm room for the weekend. The blond genius spent the rest of the evening kicking himself for letting his emotions get away from him, and in the process endangering the one he cared about so much.

He looked over at his computer and noticed that a window was blinking. He walked over and sat down, and saw that Franz Hopper was trying to contact him.

"Calmer today?" Franz asked.

"Yeah," was the reply, "I'm sorry, sir; I screwed up big time. Now I'm stuck in my room until Monday, and Mr. Roullier is on the floor to make sure I don't leave."

"I was afraid it would be serious," Franz said, "but we might have a couple of options, though. I was hoping to have you at the factory so you could accompany the others when they went tonight, but if we can't arrange that, I may be able to arrange it so you have access to the console from your desktop there."

"Isn't that a little dangerous? What if XANA discovers it?"

"If XANA discovers what we are doing, we're all in serious trouble. When we do this, we'll be leaving Lyoko wide open and defenseless. While the others won't be in danger of being permanently virtualized if XANA cuts the connection, they won't be in any shape to defend Lyoko if it is attacked. We run the distinct risk of losing everything if this doesn't work."

"Then, I guess we just have to make sure it works," Jeremie simply said.

"Right," was the response, "now, did you ever check out that music Aelita sent you?"

"Oh, crap! I didn't!" Jeremie exclaimed, "when I heard about Aelita, I forgot all about it!"

"Well, take a look at it and make sure it's clean," Franz said, "she's going to need it for tonight."

* * *

"Is everything ready for the Queen's trip?" asked Her Majesty's Secretary.

"Yes, sir," replied the security captain, "we have security units posted at all entry and exit points, plus we'll have the usual contingent in the box. Will you be there, sir?"

"No," replied the Secretary, "my mother wishes to see the performance tonight, and the Queen was so kind as to make arrangements for her. I shall be joining her backstage this evening."

"Lucky sod," the man muttered under his breath.

"I'm sorry, did you say something?" the Secretary asked.

"Nothing, sir. I'll be off now to make sure everything goes smoothly."

With that, the security captain left the office, leaving the Secretary and one other person to themselves.

"Are all the arrangements in place?" the Secretary asked him.

"Yes. The decoy will be in the box tonight, and Her Majesty will be with you backstage. We'll keep the detail loose around her, but no unauthorized persons will be allowed close."

"Make an exception for the band, and the pink haired girl and her friend," the Secretary said, "even though we have scant information on Ms. Stones, she seems harmless. And after what happened to her the other day, I think she'd be tickled to meet the Queen."

"Yes sir," was the reply. The man then added, "oh, one more thing. Torchwood called and asked if they should be on standby."

"No, nothing beyond normal readiness," the Secretary said, "by the way, have they anything to report?"

"No sir," the man replied, "he hasn't been seen in quite some time. They've been running down rumors, but nothing's panned out."

"Good," the Secretary said, "the last thing we need is for Him to show up. That's always a sign of trouble."

* * *

"Be careful with that!" shouted Randle Thorne to the workers unloading the huge object from the truck. "That is worth more than the lot of you will make in this lifetime, and you will pay if you damage it!"

The workers just grumbled in response and kept on unloading it.

"Where y' want it it, guv'na?" asked the nominal foreman of the group.

"There is an empty room just off the main stage on the left," Thorne said, pointing in the correct direction, "it is big enough to hold the prop, and I'll have technicians by to set it up this afternoon. Just get it in there and set it down in the middle of the room."

"Y'want the tarp off?"

"No, leave it on; the technicians will take care of that."

"Righto. Okay you sorry buggers! Move yer arses and get that thing where the man said!"

Somewhat satisfied, Randle Thorne turned away and almost ran into Harry Mudd.

"Report," was all Mudd said, and immediately Thorne's face went blank as the Mark of XANA formed in his eyes.

"The Krab is here," he said to his master, "and all other preparations are complete. The Kankerlats are out on the street now, causing a stir and lowering everyone's guard. When you give the signal, they'll begin killing everyone in sight and work their way to the palace."

"And what of Stones?"

"She is still at the hotel with Delmas. They will be here late this afternoon to prepare."

"I will make sure to task some Kankerlats to take out the personnel backstage. Any new information about the Queen?"

"No, she will arrive ten minutes before the concert starts, and she will be sitting in the box I pointed out before."

"I have noticed Royal Security all around the venue," Mudd/XANA said, "some of them are heavily armed."

"Your signal in the music should take care of everyone listening," Throne replied.

"True, but I wish I had more units available to cover this location. Very well, continue on as planned. When the action starts, you may have the pleasure of taking care of the SubDigitals. I have gotten the impression that you really want to do something memorable to their manager."

"Oh, yes," Thorne replied, "that woman has been a pain in my arse since she arrived, and I think I'm going to return the favor, many times over. I sure hope she's a screamer."

* * *

Aelita looked at the clock for the umpteenth time. And for the umpteenth time, it read 3pm. There were still two hours before she had to leave for the auditorium.

Sissi had left an hour before to spend time with her father, leaving the DJ all alone and bored. And she was troubled that she hadn't heard from Jeremie yet today, nor had she heard anything about the tracks she uploaded for him to check.

As if in answer to her unspoken prayers, her cell phone rang. She quickly picked it up and saw it was the phone number she was waiting to see, Jeremie's.

"Hi!" she said in greeting, "where have you been?"

"Doing what I should have done yesterday instead of getting myself in trouble," Jeremie replied, "I forgot all about the music you wanted me to check out, so I've been working on it all morning. And, you're right; there was something in it. XANA must have put bits of the signal in several different tracks, and when you combined them in the right manner, they formed the signal I saw before. It's actually pretty interesting how it was done..."

"Jeremie, I don't care," Aelita said, "are you okay?"

"Yeah, I am," he replied, "other than feeling like an idiot, I'm fine. After this is over with, I'm really going to have to find a way to make it up to Mrs. Hertz. She's still pretty mad at me for what happened."

"Well, you shouldn't have hit her," Aelita chided.

"Yeah, I know, I know," Jeremie replied, "anyway, I've put the scrubbed tracks back in the protected memory area, so you can download them and burn a disk. And, about tonight..."

"Yes?"

"We're going to bend heaven and earth to make this work, but if it doesn't, get yourself and as many people as you can out of there. Don't be a hero; I don't want to lose you after all we've been through."

Aelita smiled at this. "I will," she said, ending the phone call. Then she added, "and I love you, too."


	9. PreShow Jitters

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko, and the television series, Torchwood. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Additional Disclaimer:**Members of the British government and royalty are depicted from this point in the story forward.. Though most of the persons depicted are fictitious, the character of The Queen is not. However, the depiction of the Queen in this story should not in any way, shape, or form be construed as factual. The author has no knowledge of the Royal Family, and makes no attempt to pretend otherwise. The author intends no disrespect to The Queen, nor to the British Government, by their portrayal in this story.

* * *

5pm came and Sophie went and got Aelita. The pair left the hotel and went to the auditorium, quickly made their way past security, and arrived at Aelita's dressing room. 

"Well, you made it safe and sound," Sophie said, "you can relax here for a while; someone will be around to do your makeup around six. About 6:45, we'll have some people back stage for meet and greets, but you don't have to attend if you don't want to. The show will start at seven, and you'll go out and do your set around 7:15. After that, it's back here to change for the final set, then it's done. All of the security people will be keeping an eye out for you tonight, including the Queen's security detail. After the show, I'm sure the Queen will want to meet you as well as the boys, so don't go running off. Any questions?"

"No," Aelita replied.

"Good," Sophie said, "listen, I know the last couple of days have been tough, but hang in there! You've got talent like I've never seen, and the people out there will just love you. Try not to let Thursday get you down, but if you're still having trouble, let me know. I'll sit with you from now on if it helps."

"No, that's alright," Aelita said, "I'll be fine."

"Okay," Sophie said, not quite believing the girl. "I'll check back on you before the meet and greet. If you need anything, get one of the hands to call me."

With that, Sophie left.

Aelita went over her dressing chair and sat down. It faced a brightly lit mirror, and she could clearly see the pink haired girl in it look as down as she felt. The activity this morning had taken her mind off of it, but the attack on Thursday still haunted her. It wasn't what XANA tried to do, it was the fact that in just a few hours, she would be standing on stage as XANA carried out its plan, the one that called for her death.

It would be hard for anyone, let alone a young girl, to sit and watch the minutes pass, knowing that at a certain time, you would die. And that was the thought that rang through her mind, she was going to die, today. Even with all of the assurances that Sophie and Jeremie and even her father gave her, Aelita still entertained the thought that despite it all, XANA would finally win, and she wouldn't see the sunrise tomorrow.

Aelita folded her arms on the dressing table before her, lay her head down in her arms, and wept.

* * *

"According to the schedule, the concert will start at 7 pm," Jeremie was telling the others in his dorm room, "Aelita will perform first, probably for about forty-five minutes. After that, the SubDigitals will perform for about two hours, and then comes the final set, the CODE XANA piece. Probably during that time, we'll see a noticeable increase of quantum energy being redirected away from Lyoko and to XANA's system, where ever it is. We should still have more than enough energy left to do what we need to do, but if there isn't, we'll compensate." 

"Power shouldn't be a problem," came Franz Hopper's voice, "there was a significant upsurge in quantum energy going out the rogue conduits this morning, and there has been a gradual buildup since then. I don't think we'll see too much more; XANA has done a lot worse in the past with a lot less energy."

"Still, we need to plan for the possibility," Jeremie said, "that said, what do we do if power drops on Lyoko enough that none of us can go help Aelita?"

"We call her and tell her to get out," Yumi said, "then we somehow get them to evacuate the auditorium, even if that means phoning in a bomb threat."

"Hopefully it won't come to that," Franz said, "but I will keep it in mind. Everybody that can make it should be at the factory at around 6 pm. Even if it means you must wait before we make our move, I want you on Lyoko and ready to go at a moment's notice."

"Yeah, and while you're cooling your heels on Lyoko, I've got to cool mine here," Jeremie said.

"Yes, I've been thinking about that, too," Franz said, "you said that someone was making sure you didn't leave?"

"Yeah, Mr. Roullier," Jeremie replied.

"If you need to go somewhere, will he escort you?"

"Yeah, if it's the bathroom. Otherwise I'm stuck."

"Well, I think you'll need to go to the bathroom in a bad way, say around 6:15," Franz declared.

"I take it you have something in mind," the blond genius said.

"Oh, yes I do."

* * *

She had to laugh at all the fol-der-ral. All these men, scurrying about, just to insure that she was safe. Of course, if they had their way, they'd lock her in a glass case at the center of Buckingham Palace and make sure no one ever got close. 

The Queen had to put up with situations like this for most of her life. If someone was truly bound and determined to get at her, they could; that was proven by a disturbed man a few years back. He turned out to be harmless, but she kept her wits about her and calmly spoke with him until the guards came. Oh well, at least this time she could wander around a bit. The security team was evidently told to keep a loose watch on her, and truth be told, she was too old to be running off on any adventures.

The room they gave her wasn't too bad. It had a worn couch that wasn't too worn out, and there were a few old theater magazines scattered about. Perusing them took her all of fifteen minutes, and then she was back to nothing to do but wait.

Just then, a noise seemed to filter into her ears. Oh, there was enough racket already, with everyone trying to get ready for the performance, but this wasn't associated with that, and that's what caught her attention.

She stood up and left her room, noticing with a hidden smile that the security team tensed up as she emerged. She located the source of the sound and homed in on it. It was the sound of a girl sobbing, and it was coming from one of the performer's dressing room. She went over to the door, which wasn't closed, and peered inside. There was a pink haired girl, not more than thirteen or fourteen, sitting in a chair with her head down. Her sobbing was more apparent now that the Queen stood at the door. Shifting into grandmother mode, she softly knocked on the door and stepped inside.

"Whatever is the matter, dear?"

* * *

Aelita was totally surprised by the strange woman's voice. She jerked upright and turned around to see an older woman standing just inside her doorway. The woman was dressed in a nice light blue suit, with a matching hat. She had on a white blouse and was holding a small white hand bag in white gloved hands. 

"Oh, I'm sorry I startled you, dear," the woman said.

"It's alright," Aelita replied, "I'm sorry, but the public isn't allowed back here."

"Don't worry about that," the woman said, "my son, Geoffrey, made arrangements for me to take in the performance from backstage tonight. I was sitting and waiting for the night to begin when I heard you crying. What's the matter?"

"It's nothing," Aelita replied, "I guess it's just nerves. I'll be alright in a moment."

"You know," the woman said, "I've been around for a long time, and I've been lied to by some of the best liars in the world, and you don't even come close. Something is bothering you, and it would help if you told someone."

Aelita looked for a moment at the woman, who just stood there and smiled like there wasn't a problem in the world she couldn't solve.

"Something horrible is going to happen tonight," Aelita finally said, "and I don't think there's any way to stop it."

The woman came into the room and sat in the only other chair.

"Surely the performance isn't going to be that bad?" she asked as she settled in the seat.

"It's nothing like that," Aelita replied, "someone is going to do something during the last performance of the night, and in the end, he's going to kill me."

"Isn't that a bit melodramatic?" the older woman said.

"Yes, put that way, it is," Aelita said with a laugh, "but it's the truth. He told me he was going to do it on Thursday."

"When you were attacked?"

Aelita stared in shock at the woman.

"Yes, dear, I know all about it," the woman continued, "Geoffrey works at the Palace, and he was briefed on the whole thing. So, I take it you are Aelita Stones."

"Yes, ma'am. And you are?"

"Mrs. Windsor," came the reply.

* * *

Michael Roullier was sitting in a chair close to Jeremie's room, reading. It was a pain to have to sit and babysit, but the Principal's orders were specific: Jeremie could not leave his room unless he had to go to the bathroom, or the building was burning down. 

He had just turned the page of _Paris Gardening_ when Jeremie's door opened and the boy stuck his head out.

"Mr. Roullier, I need to use the bathroom," he said.

Michael nodded and the boy opened the door wider and stepped out. Jeremie walked to the bathroom, with the gardener close behind him. They both disappeared in the boys bathroom.

Seconds after the bathroom door closed, Jeremie peeked around the corner. Franz had instantiated a polymorphic specter of him, and sent it to the bathroom. The boy genius had about a minute to clear the floor and make his way to the factory.

He had just closed the door to the stairwell when the Jeremie clone and Mr. Roullier came back out. They walked silently back to Jeremie's room, where the clone went in and shut the door. Michael then went back to his seat and resumed his watch.

Meanwhile, the real Jeremie made his way to the basement, and the boiler room. He found the door unlocked, went in, then back to the door that led to the sewers. He quickly made his way over to the factory to join his friends.

* * *

Sophie made her way to Aelita's dressing room to help the girl get ready for her performance. It was about 6pm, and the girl needed to get changed and get her makeup on for her opening set. She reached the dressing room and saw the door was open, and there was talking inside. She entered the room and saw just about the last thing she thought she would ever see. 

Aelita was sitting in a chair, next to the Queen of England. Her Majesty was holding the girl's hand and talking softly to her. Aelita, for her part, looked like she had been crying.

"Is everything alright?" Sophie asked, breaking the spell.

Both women looked startled by the newcomer, and Aelita quickly pulled her hand out of the Queen's.

"Oh, Sophie! You surprised me," Aelita said, "this is Mrs. Windsor. She's supposed to be back here."

"I see," Sophie replied. She could see that the girl had absolutely no idea who was sitting next to her, and the look on the Queen's face, and the small hand gesture she made told her that Her Majesty wanted it that way for the moment.

"How do you do, Mrs. Windsor," Sophie replied, "I hope you enjoy the show this evening. Now, if you excuse us, I need to help Aelita get ready for her performance."

"Of course," the Queen replied, "I'll just return to my room. Now, Aelita, don't worry a bit about what some ruffian may have told you. I can assure you that this is the safest place you could ever be, and even if there was trouble, someone will come to your rescue. Just be strong, and enjoy yourself."

With that, the Queen left.

Sophie watched the monarch leave the room, then turned back to her charge.

"She was a nice lady," Aelita said, "I can almost imagine my grandmother being like her."

"Yes," Sophie replied. She would have to tell Aelita just who Mrs. Windsor was, but now was not the time.

* * *

Jeremie made it to the factory and set up a delayed virtualization into Lyoko. He then ran down to the scanners and entered the one he programmed for his transfer. Seconds later, he was standing in the Arena of Sector Five. Once the door opened, he made his way to the hanger where the Skidbladnir was docked, where his friends were waiting. 

"Whoa, Jeremie!" Odd said when he arrived, "what's with the new duds?"

Jeremie looked down at himself and saw he wasn't wearing his fairy prince outfit any more. Now, he was dressed in a body suit similar to the others, but in a teal and black motif. He also noticed a gauntlet that covered most of his right forearm.

"Franz, what's the deal?" Jeremie said to the room.

"Well," the disembodied scientist said, "I thought it would be a good idea to modify your persona for the mission. You can generate an Energy Field similar to Aelita's, plus the gauntlet on your arm gives you access to other offensive weaponry. It's 6:30 now, so why don't you take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with your functions."

"How are the power conduits?" Jeremie asked Franz.

"The drain is increasing at a gradual rate," Franz replied, "but we are still looking good for power."

"Okay," Jeremie said, "now, who wants to come with me to test my new stuff?"

* * *

6:45 came, and people started filing back to meet the SubDigitals. They were politely but firmly kept away from the dressing rooms, where Aelita and the Queen were waiting. One dark haired girl asked to be allowed through to see her friend, and was waived on. 

Sissi knocked softly on Aelita's door.

"Hi," the pink haired girl said when she answered the door, "I though you'd still be with your father."

"Daddy's meeting the band again," Sissi replied, walking in, "he's going to watch from the second row, while I'm backstage with Jim."

"How's your story coming?"

"Good! Daddy says that I'm off the hook, even if the TV thing doesn't wind up panning out. He saw the effort I put into it, and thinks it's good enough; though I still want to turn it in. Ah, Aelita?"

"Yes?"

"Good luck tonight. I hope everything goes well."

"Thanks."

"Not like I like you or anything; it's just that you're representing Kadic Academy, and I don't want the school to look bad."

"I understand, Sissi," Aelita said, smiling, "I'll do my best."

* * *

Randle Thorne and Harry Mudd were in the storage room, removing the tarp from the large prop that had been brought in earlier. Once uncovered, the Krab activated and stood up. At the same time, Harry Mudd changed from a mundane dancer into XANA/William. 

"When it is time, you will be activated again," XANA said to Thorne, "I will also possess the other dancers and use them as distractions for the security people. After the Queen is dead, I will take my revenge on the Lyoko Warriors by killing Aelita, but not after I've had a little fun with her. You will eliminate all of the backstage personnel. Enjoy yourself as much as possible as you do it; the feedback you will receive is well worth the effort."


	10. Opening Act

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko, and the television series, Torchwood. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Additional Disclaimer:**Members of the British government and royalty are depicted from this point in the story forward.. Though most of the persons depicted are fictitious, the character of The Queen is not. However, the depiction of the Queen in this story should not in any way, shape, or form be construed as factual. The author has no knowledge of the Royal Family, and makes no attempt to pretend otherwise. The author intends no disrespect to The Queen, nor to the British Government, by their portrayal in this story.

* * *

The Lyoko Warriors _ooohed_ as the iceberg exploded. Jeremie lowered the big weapon and grinned. 

"I think I'm in love," he said to his friends.

They were standing at the edge of the Ice Sector, watching Jeremie as he experimented with the weapons Franz gave him. At least Odd was; Ulrich and Yumi were a few meters away, mock fighting. The couple had exchanged one of their weapons with the other, and were practicing with them, becoming familiar with them.

"That's it, Yumi," Ulrich said as he blocked a sword strike from the girl, "you've got the hang of it now."

"It'll be good to have a close in weapon for once," the Japanese girl replied, "I mean, the fans are great and all, but they don't do much up close. Now, try throwing yours again, and concentrate a little harder."

Ulrich nodded and complied, sending the fan out and away from the both of them. His only problem was he was right handed, so he had to switch the fan for the sword before he threw it. Now it flew out, and Ulrich closed his eyes and began concentrating. The fan tilted a little, but didn't change course. It landed about three hundred meters away.

"I guess thought control isn't part of the fans themselves," Yumi said.

"Either that, or I'm not on the right frequency," Ulrich said, "I'll be back."

With that, he trotted off to retrieve the fan.

Meanwhile, Jeremie was going over his inventory.

"Let's see; gauntlet spike, gauntlet sword, gauntlet shotgun, gauntlet laser, and gauntlet BFG."

"You ought to just set it for BFG and have done with it," Odd said, "that's what I would do."

"Odd, if I did that, it would be like shooting sparrows with a bazooka," the genius replied.

"So?"

"Different weapons for different situations."

"Jeremie, it's after 7 pm," came the voice of Franz Hopper, "the concert must be starting by now, and power levels are rising in the rogue conduits. Get everybody back here so you'll be ready."

"Yes, sir. Okay everybody! Back to the edge of the sector! We need to get back to Sector Five right now!"

* * *

7 pm. Aelita and Sophie stood at the edge of the stage. The house lights had dimmed, and the opening ceremonies were starting. After they finished, there would be a brief interlude and Aelita would have to get to her mixing board. 

"Are you nervous?" Sophie asked.

"Yeah, a little," Aelita replied, "but Mrs. Windsor helped quite a bit. I'll be fine."

"About Mrs. Windsor..."

Just as Sophie was about to continue, the music came up and Aelita got the que to go. She turned to Sophie and gave her a smile and a thumbs up, then ran out to her position.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Aelita Stones!!!!!"

The spotlight hit her and she started. She looked down at the board when the spots came on, so they didn't dazzle her. She set her switches and started up the music, then lost herself in it.

She pushed all of her worries to the side, and let the music come full in. She faded in tracks, adjusted settings, and molded the music to what she felt. Though there was a little hesitance there, it quickly faded as the pulse increased. She quickly got in sync with the beat, and quickened it, for that's what it wanted. She automatically looked up and out into the crowd, and saw that people were already up and dancing about, even though this wasn't a dance venue. She now started feeling their vibrations coming back to her. The people wanted a more intense beat, so she increased the tempo. They responded that it was good, and whoops and hollers started to rise up as they enjoyed themselves.

On the other side of the stage, Sissi and Jim stood. Jim had the video camera up and was recording Aelita's performance. Every now and then, he would pan out into the audience and catch their reactions to her performance.

"She's pulling out all the stops," he commented, "I hope that Chris and the others can keep up."

"Wouldn't it be funny if they couldn't," Sissi said with a hint of pride that made Jim glance down at her.

"Did somethin' happen to you two this week?" he asked.

"Nope, nothing at all," she replied.

* * *

In the artist's waiting room, Chris, Ben and Nico were watching Aelita's performance. 

"Wow, she's setting the bar high," Nico commented.

"That's great," Chris replied, "I was kinda worried about her for a while there, with that crap on Thursday."

"Yeah, it sure looks like she got over it," Ben added, "but still, we're gonna have to amp it up. As much as I like the squirt, we can't let her out do us."

"You're right there."

* * *

"Is everything okay, Your Majesty?" Geoffrey asked. 

"Yes, I'm fine," the Queen replied, "I can't say I like this style of music all that much, but she does seem to be competent at it."

"It's not as bad as some of the things I've heard young people listening to," the secretary replied, "I'm more of a sixties rock 'n roll fan myself."

"I know," Her Majesty replied, "I've seen you playing air guitar in your office."

Geoffrey _gulped_ and the Queen gave a small laugh.

"Don't be embarrassed," she quickly said, "at least not about your playing. However, accepting the accolades of your adoring fans is quite another thing."

* * *

Aelita went through her whole performance, building up the excitement, then cooling it down, then raising it up again, higher, then bringing it down. Now, she launched into her final piece. She increased the beat, then increased it again. She added in harder hitting track to build up excitement, weaving them in and out, increasing the tempo all the time. Now it seemed like the entire auditorium was on its feet, dancing in place, in the aisles, sending back the rhythm she was giving them. Finally, it reached a crescendo; she held it there a moment, then killed everything. The silence was almost deafening. Then, the house erupted in applause. She stood behind her board for a moment as the lights came up. The announcer then called out, "Aelita!" and the applause increased. The pink haired girl bowed, then left the stage. Calls immediately rang out, "encore! Encore! Aelita!" 

Sophie, who had stood at the edge of the stage the entire time, turned Aelita around and had her go back out to take another bow. She did and the crowd roared its appreciation. After taking one more bow, Aelita turned and retreated backstage.

This time, all of the SubDigitals were waiting for her.

"Great Job!" Nico said, "you just made it harder for us, you know!"

Aelita face faulted. "I, I'm sorry!" she said, but Nico and the others just smiled.

"Don't worry," Nico said, "we can handle it. Now go on back and relax. You need to rest up for the CODE XANA bit after us."

That brought Aelita back to earth.

"Yeah, I'll do that," she said, "I almost forgot."

She went back to her dressing room and flopped down in a chair. She opened a bottle of water and started drinking to rehydrate, and started thinking about what came next. She didn't get very far, for there was a knock at her door, then Mrs. Windsor came in.

"Congratulations, Aelita," the older woman said, "you were magnificent!"

"Thank you, ma'am," Aelita replied, "oh, is that your son?"

"Er, yes," said the man who came in behind Mrs. Windsor, "I'm Geoffrey, pleased to meet you. Have you been practicing this long?"

"Not really," Aelita replied, "I starting mixing around a year ago."

"It's natural talent, just like I told you, Geoffrey," Mrs. Windsor said, "now, would you like to sit with us for a while and watch your friends perform?"

"Maybe later," Aelita replied, "I need to rest a bit, then get ready for the final act."

Aelita thought a moment, then added, "Mrs. Windsor, I don't want you to think I'm rude or anything, but it would probably be a good idea if you left before the final act."

"Whatever for?" Mrs. Windsor replied, "you mean that threat? I assure you, I'm as safe here as I am in my bed."

"It's just... I don't want anything bad to happen to you," Aelita said.

"Don't you worry about me," Mrs. Windsor assured her, "you just rest and get ready. And if you change your mind, you know where I'm at."

* * *

Someone once said that war was long stretches of absolute boredom separated by moments of stark terror. As Jeremie sat on the floor of the hanger, he finally understood what that meant. 

"What time is it?" he asked space.

"8:45," came Franz Hopper's voice, "Aelita should have finished her performance, and the SubDigitals should be starting theirs. It should be around 11pm before we need to go."

"You know," Odd piped in, "I almost wish XANA would send some Creepers, just to pass the time."

"Be glad he can't," Franz said, "XANA is diverting all of his resources to London, which is why this plan is even feasible."

"Yeah, but still..." Odd said, but was cut off by Jeremie.

"Odd, you're just jealous," he told his friend, "you don't have a girlfriend to cuddle with."

Jeremie nodded his head in the direction of Ulrich and Yumi, who were sitting close together away from the others. Although they didn't have their arms around each other, that was the only part missing.

"Yeah, I wonder what'll happen when they'll finally realize what they're doing," Odd said.

"Leave them alone," Jeremie warned, "the last thing we need is you and or the other two devirtualized because you interrupted them."

* * *

The SubDigitals were able to match Aelita's performance, and the crowd went wild. Sophie was beaming with pride that this gig was finally working out. Now, all they had to do was get past this last little thing, and they were home free. 

Aelita stayed in her dressing room, changing for the last performance and trying to stay composed. She had her cell phone sitting on the dressing room table, ready to call before she went on again.

Finally, one of the stage hands called out that it was ten minutes before the final set. Aelita picked up the phone and dialed.

"Daddy, it's me," she said, "I'm getting ready to go out for the final set. I hope whatever you've got in mind works."


	11. The Mighty Magical What? Rangers

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko, and the television series, Torchwood. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Additional Disclaimer:**Members of the British government and royalty are depicted from this point in the story forward.. Though most of the persons depicted are fictitious, the character of The Queen is not. However, the depiction of the Queen in this story should not in any way, shape, or form be construed as factual. The author has no knowledge of the Royal Family, and makes no attempt to pretend otherwise. The author intends no disrespect to The Queen, nor to the British Government, by their portrayal in this story.

* * *

The Lyoko Warriors were killing time in the Skid's hanger when the call came down.

"Aelita just called," came Franz Hopper's voice, "she's about to go on. Everybody get up and get ready."

As they got up, Jeremie said, "say, I just thought of something. We're going to be popping in from out of nowhere in front of thousands of people and video recording equipment. Not only that, but some of those people know us. What are we going to do about that?"

In answer to his question, an object suddenly materialized in front of him and the others. Jeremie quickly reached out and caught his before it fell to the floor. Turning it over in his hands, he saw that it was a helmet, colored the same as his outfit.

"I believe that will provide adequate anonymity," Franz said.

Jeremie nodded and put his helmet on. As he did, so did the others.

"Cool!" exclaimed Odd, "we're Power Rangers!"

"Except we don't have a purple megazord," Yumi said.

"Maybe we can get Barney," Ulrich added.

"Enough, children," Franz said, "get on the transporter pads and we'll get started."

"Why the transporter pads," Yumi asked, "we aren't taking the Skid, are we?"

"No," said Jeremie, "Franz's program uses the transporter pads to translate us to London. It was easier to make the program use the transporter pads than write one from scratch."

"Transporting now," Franz said.

As they vanished, Yumi said, "I hope this works..."

* * *

Aelita walked to the stage like she was walking to the gallows. She tried not thinking about it that way, she couldn't help herself. Sophie had joined her once again, and was mouthing encouragement and pleasantries that went in one ear and out the other as Aelita gathered her thoughts and tried getting them under control.

_They'll be here,_ she thought to herself, _Jeremie and daddy won't let me down._

She finally reached the stage. It was dark as the crew was making the final changes for the set. On her que, Aelita would walk out to her board and quickly set up. Then a spotlight would focus on her as she started her mix. Then the Kankerlats and dancers would come out. Sometime after that, the SubDigitals would join her, along with William.

And that's when it would happen.

The crew chief pointed at Aelita, giving her the que to go on. She sighed one last time, told herself it would be okay, and stepped on stage. She quickly went over to her mixing board and inserted the CD with the scrubbed tracks. As it spun up, she set her controls for the start of the sequence, then waited. On the que from the director, she started the CD and began her mix. As the first notes of the music played, the spotlight came on, focused on her, and came up brighter. The audience could now see her, dressed in a costume the same as the one she wore on Lyoko, the same one depicted in the CODE XANA magazine. There were only slight changes, it seemed, to make her look a little more menacing and less like the girl next door.

Aelita played her music and swayed like she was instructed to. As she did, a recorded voice boomed out.

"In a virtual world," it began, "an evil queen arose. She enslaved the people and cast out the only protector they had. Now, flush with her victory, the queen seeks to extend her conquest from the virtual world... to ours."

Now, the Kankerlats started marching out on the stage. There seemed like hundreds of them; so many they started jumping off the stage and into the aisles, marching up the auditorium. As the dancers came out, most of the bugs had joined the audience, leaving a few still on the stage. Those made their way to the center of the stage, and to the right side, where Aelita was still mixing.

Then, the music came to the part where XANA's subliminal track would have kicked in. The audience was on edge, watching what was going on the stage, while also watching the Kankerlats skittering up and down the aisles. Then, the curtain began to rise.

This was the part where the SubDigitals would appear, along with William/XANA/Harry Mudd. The band would play their counterpoint to Aelita's music, and XANA would do whatever it was he was going to do.

As the curtain raised up, the narrator's voice said, "but the protector who was cast out has returned, to save his people from oppression; to prevent the queen from conquering our world. He is the only one who can stop the madness; he is the only one who can enter... CODE XANA!"

At the end of the narration, the curtain had completely raised up, revealing the SubDigitals. Chris and the others weren't preparing to play, however. They were too busy looking up and the mammoth thing that had joined them.

A Krab.

It stood over the band, acting like a roof. Atop the Krab stood William, arrayed in his black body suit, holding his huge sword. The Krab took one step forward, to the _oohs_ of the crowd, then turned in the direction of its target. The Queen's box.

_Oh, NO!_ was the only thing Aelita could think.

* * *

Franz Hopper wound his way through the rogue conduits, hurtling towards XANA's stronghold. With him were four very precious packets, the Lyoko Warriors.

They reached the other end of the connection, and Franz immediately began subverting subsystems. Unfortunately for XANA, he had taken the code for Lyoko without looking at it too closely. Franz had put in multiple back doors to almost all of the systems, against the day he would have to troubleshoot a problem from within. Now, he was using those backdoors to insinuate himself and the others into XANA's computer without the rogue program's knowledge.

Once secure, Franz quickly located the energy streams powering William. Querying the system, he was able to determine where XANA's minion was. A few more queries gave him the general layout of the venue, as well as the location of almost everyone there. He found XANA's two targets, one in the audience, and one on stage, Aelita. A sudden update told the scientist that the target in the audience had been destroyed, and now Aelita was being targeted.

Franz installed the transference program, then sent the Lyoko Warriors to the stage in London.

* * *

As soon as the monster started swiveling their way, the security men guarding the Queen reacted. They instantly drew their weapons and prepared to fire. If the signal XANA implanted in the music had been left there, everyone in the audience would have been mesmerized and unable to move, making what was about to happen all that much easier. But since the signal was gone, the guards were able to react to the threat. Unfortunately, they hesitated for just an instant, not sure if something was really going to happen, or if this was somehow part of the act. That hesitation cost them dearly.

The Krab powered up and fired its laser directly at the Queen's box, destroying it and everyone in it. As soon as the Krab fired, people screamed and bolted for the doors, only to be shot at by the Kankerlats in the aisles. The Kankerlats on the stage began firing at the SubDigitals, while the dancers began to kill people on their own.

Two Kankerlats fired at Aelita, causing her to duck down. She heard a _clank_ and a _thud_ as the Krab took another step, this time towards her. Then two Kankerlats came around the mixing board from opposite sides and covered her. Realizing that there was no where to run, Aelita rose up and put up her hands.

"Finally!" XANA/William roared, "my first conquest! And to celebrate, I'll top it off with something light... and pink."

* * *

The four Lyoko Warriors materialized high in the rafters of the auditorium, over the stage. Once they were transferred, they dropped onto some scaffolding that crisscrossed the ceiling. Jeremie lost his footing and almost fell off, but Ulrich managed to grab an arm and haul the genius to safety.

Once everyone was stable, they looked down on the tableau below them. The Krab had just fired into the crowd, and was now moving towards Aelita. There were Kankerlats all over the place, firing and hitting civilians.

"Looks like we got here just in time," Odd commented.

"Yeah, and we'd better get to it or Aelita's toast," Yumi added.

Below them, the Krab bent down to deposit William on the stage. Odd took careful aim and fired two Laser Arrows at the minion's feet, knocking him off balance and away from Aelita. He then fired at two Kankerlats flanking Aelita, destroying them. Jeremie followed up by activating his gauntlet's BFG and destroying the Krab.

"Okay, when we get down there, let me say somethin' really cool to throw them off," Odd said just before leaping.

"I just know we're gonna to regret this," Jeremie said as he and the other two joined Odd.

* * *

The Krab began to bend forward to deposit its rider before his prize. William was about to jump off when something exploded at his feet, knocking him off the Krab and onto the stage. Another two small explosions occurred, and the two Kankerlats flanking Aelita were destroyed. Then came a big _boom!_ and the Krab exploded, knocking Aelita down.

When she picked herself back up, four figures dropped from seemingly nowhere, and landed between her and the now rising William.

"Once again, your plan's been foiled," one of the figures said, dressed in purple, "this time you'll learn a harsh lesson; courtesy of the Mighty Mahou Hentai Rangers!"

The burgundy clad person next to the purple warrior turned to him and yelled in a girl's voice, "ODD!"


	12. Melee

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko, and the television series, Torchwood. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Additional Disclaimer:**Members of the British government and royalty are depicted from this point in the story forward.. Though most of the persons depicted are fictitious, the character of The Queen is not. However, the depiction of the Queen in this story should not in any way, shape, or form be construed as factual. The author has no knowledge of the Royal Family, and makes no attempt to pretend otherwise. The author intends no disrespect to The Queen, nor to the British Government, by their portrayal in this story.

* * *

When Jean-Pierre Delmas saw the giant crab-like thing blast the Queen's box, he panicked like everyone else. He scrambled for the exit, only to be nearly shot by one of the bug-like things in the aisles. Dodging the blast, he stumbled and fell, and was almost trampled by other people trying to escape over him. More than a few were shot by the bug things, and a few look like they were killed.

He kept curled up to protect himself from being trampled more, and soon found himself alone. There were bodies around him, obscuring his view; some of them were groaning, others, deathly silent.

He risked a peek over a still form, and saw that the bugs were busy attacking the fleeing audience. In the other direction, towards the stage, there were no attackers, other than those on the stage itself.

He struggled and got up, then ran for the stage. Four newcomers stood between Aelita and the crab monster. He thought he heard one yell "ODD!" but wrote it off as his imagination. He quickly and carefully made his way to the edge of the stage to head behind it.

His daughter was back there somewhere and he needed to make sure she was safe.

* * *

Chris and the others were still stunned when the crab blasted the Queen. That shock was short lived when some of the bug things started shooting at them. They quickly left the stage.

Nico caught up with Simon, who had found a nail gun and was shooting back at the bugs.

"Grab something like this and start shooting," he hollered, "hit 'em in that target thing on their heads!"

Nico quickly looked about for a weapon, but found nothing. A couple of the bugs saw him move and shot at him, one bolt hitting him in the shoulder. The only thing he could do was run in the other direction, towards the bus behind the auditorium.

Ben and Chris had already gotten to the bus when Nico joined them. They quickly got the door open and boarded, closing the door behind them and ducking below the windows so they couldn't be seen.

"What the hell are those things?" Ben exclaimed, "this had better not be part of the show!"

"I don't think dead bodies are a part of the show," Chris said, "something must have gone wrong."

"I don't think so," Nico added, "those bug things were targeting people. And I don't think blasting the Queen's Box was an accident."

"Well, if this is what's going on here," Chris said, "what's going on elsewhere? I've seen those bugs all over the place. Even the news was talking about them."

* * *

Elsewhere around London, chaos was taking hold. The Kankerlats that had been scurrying about the streets suddenly stopped moving and began firing lasers at anything that moved. Cars, buses, people; all were targeted.

A large concentration of them had gathered at Buckingham Palace, and proceeded to kill all the guards posted there. While most of the creatures kept the surviving troops busy, a trio of Kankerlats concentrated their lasers on the gates, which had automatically shut at their approach. Two minutes was all it took to cut through the latch, and the army marched in.

* * *

Back in her waiting room, the Queen and her secretary heard the commotion. The secretary put his hand up to the ear containing an earpiece and listened to the messages being broadcast by the security detail.

"You Majesty, we must leave here immediately!" he said, then added emphasis to his suggestion by grabbing her hand and pulling her up and out of the room.

"Geoffrey!" was all she could say when she ran into his back.

"Get back!" he shouted as something whined and struck him. The Queen staggered back in the room as her secretary slumped down. Beyond him was some kind of bug like creature. It must not have seen her, because it turned and scuttled off.

She looked out again and saw the still form of the secretary, and the guard beyond him. She carefully made her way over to the soldier. He had obviously been killed by one of those bug things she had seen on the stage. Looking about to make sure there wasn't one in the hallway, she knelt down over the fallen man and removed his handgun, then searched and found his spare rounds. As she stood back up, she made sure that the pistol was loaded and safed, then went back to the room where she originally was.

When she got back to her secretary, she thought she saw a slight movement. Bending down, she carefully turned him over, causing him to moan. The creature had hit him in is shoulder, close to his upper lungs and chest, but he was still alive and breathing.

She may have been old, but she wasn't all that soft. She grabbed the man by his feet and dragged him back into the room. Once there, she wrestled him up on the couch and propped his feet up, then stripped off a curtain that was in the room and wrapped him up. The last thing she did was remove the small radio that he was wearing. She took the earpiece and put it in her ear, then brought the microphone to her lips.

"Is anyone there?" she spoke.

"This is Colonel Smythe," came a voice, "identify yourself."

"This is 'Iron Butterfly,'" the Queen replied, using the not quite complementary code name the detail had for her.

"Yes ma'am!" came the reply, "are you alright? We heard the Box was destroyed!"

"It was," she replied with a hint of sadness, "what is your current disposition?"

"We're trying to move units in to contain the situation," the colonel said, "but it's difficult with the panic. Also, you must know that the Palace is currently under attack."

"Casuatlies?"

"Yes ma'am. No firm numbers yet, but the exterior guard was completely eliminated. We're still trying to get a line on where these buggers are coming from."

"Alright. I'll leave the situation in your hands, colonel. I believe that the ringleader of this attack is here at the theater, so make every effort to secure this location as soon as possible. Also, just in case, contact my son and make sure he is apprised of the situation."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

With that, the Queen ended the transmission. Now, there was nothing left to do but wait. She settled down in a seat next to the couch, out of direct sight of the doorway. She put the pistol clips close by, just in case, and kept the pistol itself in a relaxed grip, pointing at the doorway.

If those monsters came back, they would find their helpless prey had teeth.

* * *

Just about as soon as Yumi yelled Odd's name, Odd jumped at William. XANA's minion dodged as Odd snapped off two Laser Arrows at him. William kept backpedaling to avoid being hit, while Odd disengaged to go and attack Kankerlats.

Yumi and Ulrich filled the void that Odd left; they jumped in unison at him, each tossing one of their weapons to the other. When they engaged William, both Lyoko Warriors were brandishing a sword and a fan.

William immediately called his sword to him, then swiped at both attackers. Yumi and Ulrich both easily evaded the blow. William then had the unique experience of fighting off two swordsmen, wielding small maneuverable blades, with just one huge and cumbersome sword.

He tried pressing his attack on Yumi, only to have Ulrich almost decapitate him from behind. Whirling to beat back Ulrich, William got nicked by Yumi's fan, which she had thrown the minute he turned away from her. Seeing he wasn't going to get anywhere against the two of them, he leaped away and ran off stage, ordering the possessed dancers to take them out.

"I guess William isn't into threesomes," Ulrich said before the couple turned to the approaching dancers.

* * *

When the shooting started, Jim almost dropped the camera and ran for it. Sissi did take a step or two away before he shouted at her to stay close. They crouched down and for the most part stayed out of the way.

They saw Simon, the sound man, run and grab a nail gun and begin shooting the bug things that were firing at everybody. This jogged a memory in Jim's mind, and he looked about for a nail gun of his own. He didn't find one, but he did find something better.

"Sissi, stay here," was all he said before he jumped up and sprinted off. Sissi didn't even have time to be upset before the gym teacher returned, holding a rifle and some boxes in his hands.

"Here, take these," he said, handing her the boxes, "don't lose these, they're our only ammunition. When I tell you, hand me one of them."

Sissi looked at what Jim had given her and saw they were cartridge boxes for the rifle.

"Jim, where did you get this?" she exclaimed, "do you even know what you're doing?"

"I got this from one of the security guards," Jim replied before he fired a round and destroyed a bug, "It wasn't doing him any good, so I took it. And, yes; I know what I'm doing. I got high marks for my marksmanship in the military."

With that, Jim began concentrating on taking out the bug monsters around them. He must have known something about the rifle he was shooting, for it looked like a machine gun, but he was only firing single shots from it. He finally emptied the clip loaded in the weapon, and he shouted, "reload! Give me another one!"

Sissi quickly handed him another clip, and Jim loaded it up and started firing again. This went on for a while until Sissi saw her father approaching from the side.

"Daddy!" she shouted.

Jim turned and saw the principal, and waived him over.

"Good to see you, sir!" he exclaimed as Jean-Pierre joined them and hugged his daughter.

"It's good to see you too," he replied, "we need to find a way out of here; the main entry is jammed and those things are slaughtering anything alive."

"Right now, I've just been keeping them from getting too close to us," Jim said, "I saw Simon over to our right just a bit ago fending them off with a nail gun. I haven't checked recently, is he still there?"

"No, there's no one over there," Jean-Pierre replied.

"I saw him leave a few minutes ago," Sissi added, "he went backstage."

"We should probably go that way too," Jean-Pierre said.

"That's fine, but we need to get you armed, sir," Jim said, "I got this off a downed guard over there; I think he has a pistol and some clips for it."

"Can you cover me?" the principal asked.

"Yeah. Go now!" With that, Jim started spraying rounds out to clear the path for Jean-Pierre to run. The principal scurried away in the direction Jim had indicated, returning seconds later with a handgun and extra clips.

"Alright," Jim said, "we'll begin moving to the backstage area. I'll cover our advance, you cover our retreat. Sissi, stay between us."

The two said nothing. Before they left, Jim ejected the clip he had in the rifle and replaced it with a fresh one. Then they filed out, heading for the unknown safety of backstage.

* * *

As soon as Odd leaped forward, Aelita backed away and ran backstage. There was nothing she could do at this point, though she hated to leave the fighting to her friends.

She had to duck behind some props in order to hide from some roving Kankerlats. They stopped a moment and scanned the area around her, then locked on some stage hands and fired, causing the people to scream an scatter. Satisfied, the monsters moved on, leaving Aelita behind.

She quickly got up and ran back to the dressing area. When she got there, she saw one of the men from the Queen's security detail lying on the floor, dead. The girl choked back the vomit that threatened to spew out and stepped over the man to head to her dressing room and Mrs. Windsor.

"Mrs. Windsor?" she called out, "are you alright?"

"Aelita?" came the woman's voice, "get in here right now before those things see you!"

Aelita went to the room where Mrs. Windsor's voice came from. When she looked inside, she saw Mrs. Windsor sitting in a chair, holding a handgun at her. Lying on the couch next to her was her son.

"Ah, good!" Mrs. Windsor said, lowering the gun, "you're alone. Are you alright dear?"

"Yes ma'am, but we need to get somewhere safe," Aelita replied, "I've got friends here helping out but there's so many of the monsters, plus William could show up at any moment."

"William?"

"Oh, I mean Harry Mudd. He's the one behind this; he's controlling the monsters."

"I see," Mrs. Windsor said, "well, in any case, the best thing to do is remain here and wait for rescue. I've spoken with the people in charge of the Queen's Security Detail and apprised them of our situation. They should be here shortly to take control of things. Until then, all we can do is wait."

"Oh, I think I can find a way to pass the time," came a masculine voice from behind Aelita. The next then she knew, she was sent sprawling to the floor in the room. Aelita shook her head and rolled over to see William Dunbar standing in the doorway.

"I may not have as much time as I'd like," William said as he walked in and stood over the fallen girl, "but I'll have enough time, especially since you've gone ahead and assumed the correct position for me. You should be flattered, Aelita. Your first time will be a performance before the Queen!"


	13. Victory

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko, and the television series, Torchwood. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Additional Disclaimer:**Members of the British government and royalty are depicted from this point in the story forward.. Though most of the persons depicted are fictitious, the character of The Queen is not. However, the depiction of the Queen in this story should not in any way, shape, or form be construed as factual. The author has no knowledge of the Royal Family, and makes no attempt to pretend otherwise. The author intends no disrespect to The Queen, nor to the British Government, by their portrayal in this story.

* * *

In the depths of XANA's supercomputer, Franz Hopper was busy. After dropping off the Lyoko Warriors, he immediately began subverting every subsystem he could infiltrate. He did nothing at first, just assumed control. He quickly determined that XANA himself was in this system, and the scientist didn't want to alert the virus to his presence. At least, not until he could insure that XANA would be trapped here.

Franz found that most of the towers XANA had activated were controlling multiple Kankerlats in the real world. To make this possible, XANA didn't instantiate a complete Kankerlat on earth, only enough of one to control it and use its weaponry. XANA must have somehow manufactured skeletons for the Kankerlats to surround and operate.

Another tower was controlling a human, but it wasn't William Dunbar. XANA must have trapped some poor soul some time ago and used them to help Dunbar with whatever he had to do in London. Other towers were quantum shades controlling a group of people, more zombies under XANA's spell.

There was one tower that XANA was concentrating a lot of resources on. That must be the tower controlling Dunbar's form on Earth. It must have been a polymorphic specter, because Franz couldn't identify anything looking like a scanner subsystem in this computer. Franz considered a moment: could there be a way to trap XANA in that tower? If he could do that, XANA may well be destroyed when Franz shut down this computer. The only problem with that was that William Dunbar might well be lost. The children wouldn't like it, but if it meant the end of XANA, he would live with their hatred.

He checked a few more subsystems and determined that he would have to instantiate a polymorphic specter in the computer center in order to totally destroy the system. He covertly spied the area around it and determined where the power source was.

Seeing that there was nothing else to do but wait, Franz waited. Jeremie and the others needed a few minutes to divert XANA's full attention to London before he could strike.

Just a few more minutes and this nightmare may well end.

* * *

Randle Thorne was enjoying himself. He went about, blasting people with bolts of quantum lightning. People that, to his mind, had always ridiculed him and his genius, his talent.

He ran across the stage manager for the auditorium. This fool had barely veiled his contempt for Thorne the whole week, and now was the time for payback. Thorne laughed as the man screamed. He didn't stop until the man was burnt to a crisp.

Thorne then turned and searched for the other bane in his life, that bitch, the SubDigital's manager. He noticed the band's sound man run out the back door, undoubtedly to the band's trailer. Thorne knew that the bus was blocked by trucks and other vehicles, so there was no chance of them escaping. He'd deal with them after dealing with their manager.

She was easy to find. Two of the master's Kankerlats had backed her into a corner, and was about to kill her. He quickly called them off.

"Wait," he said, "not until I've finished with her."

He walked up to her and shot her with a quantum bolt, stunning her.

"Oh no, my poppet," he crooned, "no fair fainting on me yet! You and I are going to have a little fun before we say goodbye."

He dragged her over to some crates and pushed her down on them. She tried to get up but he stunned her again. He then bent over and ripped her blouse and bra open, then did the same with the skirt she was wearing.

"Oh not bad, not bad at all!" he crowed, "you look like you're worth the trouble! Now, just lie back and enjoy it, luv. Maybe if you convince me you like it well enough, I'll put off killing you."

With that, he proceeded to rip off her hose and her underwear. Sophie was still shaken by the shock he had given her, but had enough sense to struggle and fight back. As she did, she noticed something moving in the background, a figure in a teal costume and helmet. It raised its right arm and pointed at the two monsters that were flanking Thorne. Suddenly, there was a roar as balls of energy burst from the figures arm, destroying the bugs.

Throne was in the middle of undoing his pants when something exploded behind him. He tried turning around, but only managed to turn his head. A figure had come up behind him, and was now pointing something at him.

Before he could do a thing, the figure fired again, hitting him square in the back.

* * *

While the others jumped on the offensive, Jeremie just stood there. Ulrich and Yumi managed to drive William off, then jumped in the midst of the possessed dancers. Every time they hit one, the specter controlling the person would disappear, and the possessed person would faint.

Odd, in the meantime, was having the time of his life killing Kankerlats. For a bit, he was running back and forth across the stage, taking out the little bugs, quickly clearing the stage. Then, he jumped out into the audience and started attacking the Kankerlats there.

Jeremie turned to say something to Aelita. When he turned, she wasn't there. The only thing Jeremie could think of what that she had run back to protect the others, so he headed backstage in search of her.

He set his gauntlet to shotgun mode and swept the backstage area. A couple of times, he was almost ambushed by Kankerlats that had been laying in wait, but he managed to get them before they got him. He then came upon a scene he would have never dreamed of in his worse nightmares.

Two Kankerlats were watching as a man was preparing to rape a woman. Jeremie had never seen such a thing before, but there was not doubt in his mind what was happening. The woman's shirt and skirt were ripped open, and the man was proceeding to rip her pantyhose and underwear off as she struggled against him.

Jeremie raised his gauntlet and fired at the two Kankerlats, destroying them. The man turned his head and looked at Jeremie as he fired again, catching the man full in the back. The man stumbled back as the specter dissipated, but didn't fall.

The woman pulled herself to her feet, not caring about how much of herself was being revealed. The man stood there before her, stunned and unknowing. She took one step and buried her foot in the man's groin. The man screamed and fell over. The woman then proceeded to kick and stomp the man's groin over and over, the points of her shoes and heels driving deep into him. The whole time, she was shouting things that a lady should never be caught saying, and that a young teenage boy should not be hearing.

Jeremie figured she had control of the situation, so he turned and continued his search for Aelita.

* * *

The moment William stepped in the room, the Queen raised her pistol and fired. Each round hit the villain square in the chest, but did no damage. It just seemed like she was shooting through water, for he alternately rippled and fuzzed out, like a bad television signal.

William raised his arm and pointed at the Queen. Black smoke emanated from his finger, shot forward and knocked the gun from her grasp, then wrapped around her, pinning her to the seat.

"No need to rise, Your Majesty," William said, "we will deal with you momentarily. I've been waiting a long time for this, Aelita. You should hear the boy screaming now."

Aelita said nothing. She just returned his smirk with as defiant a glare as she could manage.

"It's such sweet music in my mind," William continued, "there's a part of him that is repulsed about what is about to happen. But there's another part that can't wait to experience what you feel like. I like that part of his mind. I want to encourage it."

He pointed at Aelita, and black smoke spewed forth and surrounded her. She tried struggling, but to no avail. It lifted her up to William's hip level, then slowly spread her legs. Tendrils began to snake in her costume, coming out and splitting the seams and peeling the costume away, while another pair started to slowly draw down the zipper in front.

"I think the first time, I'll look like this," William said, then morphed into Jeremie Belpois, "that way, you can image it was someone more to your liking."

The Jeremie figure then stopped. "No, maybe this instead," he said, then morphed into her father, Franz Hopper. "I want you broken; I want every last shred of decency torn away from you. With your last breath, I want you to despair and curse the day you were born! And when I finally find your father, I want him to know how his little girl spent her last minutes of life!"

"She'll spend her last minutes of life surrounded by the ones who love her most," came a voice from the doorway, a teenage boy's, "she'll be surrounded by her husband and children; her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren. And all of them will know that she stood and prevailed against you, and that she finally saved the world from you."

The Franz Hopper figure wheeled around to see a helmeted figure in teal standing in the doorway. It wasn't any of the Lyoko Warriors he knew, so it must be...

"Jeremie Belpois," William said, morphing back to his original form, "you finally worked up the nerve to go to Lyoko, did you? Do you think you're man enough to fight for your woman? Have you got the balls for it?"

"I've got what I need right here," Jeremie replied as he raised his gauntleted arm. Before, when it had been in shotgun mode, a smallish rod that protruded out about an inch beyond his knuckles. When he had come to the dressing rooms and heard William's rant, he switched over to BFG mode. Now, he was pointing the massive maw of the weapon directly at William's chest.

"Say hello to my little friend," Jeremie said as he fired.

* * *

As specters were destroyed, power output to the towers decreased. Franz would then cut the connection to Lyoko, rendering the tower inert. So far, XANA hadn't noticed that his external lines were being cut.

Then, the tower XANA was concentrating on started powering down, fast. So fast that XANA pulled out of it completely and fled the supercomputer. What happened next totally surprised Franz. The tower exploded, taking the power conduit with it.

Franz had never seen anything like this happen before. The only thing he could figure was there was some kind of massive feedback generated, and the tower couldn't take it. No matter, the chance to trap XANA was lost, and Franz now needed to finish this off.

He began cutting conduits right and left. All of the towers went off-line in seconds. He then instantiated a specter in the computer center and had it go to the main generator. Once it was there, Franz put out the call.

"Lyoko Warriors! Prepare to withdraw!"

* * *

There was nothing left to do on the stage but mop up. Yumi and Ulrich swept the backstage area, looking for any remaining monsters, finding none. The only thing they found was a woman viciously kicking a man, peeling the paint from the walls with her invective. Ulrich started to go pull her off the man, but Yumi stopped him.

"She doesn't looked possessed by XANA," she said, "and judging by the way she looks, she may have a good reason for acting the way she is. C'mon."

Odd, in the meantime, was moping on stage. Yumi and Ulrich quickly came back and joined him.

"Gee, looks like the party's over," he said in greeting, "I'm kinda disappointed. I woulda thought XANA would have at least one more Krab."

"I don't think these are normal XANA creatures," Ulrich said, "in the past, they disappeared when we destroyed them. Now, they're lying around all over the place, almost like they were made here."

"We may never know," Yumi said. Then she turned to Odd. "Odd Della Robbia, you had better hope that cats have nine lives, 'cause when we get back, I'm gonna kill you!"

"What? What did I do?"

* * *

When the massive energy bolt hit William, he didn't just go up in a puff of red and black smoke, he exploded. Pieces of his virtual form flew off in every direction, then quickly evaporated. When the scene cleared, there was Jeremie, Aelita, the Queen and her companion. There was no trace of William.

"Are you alright?" Jeremie asked as he willed the BFG away.

"Fine," replied Aelita from the ground where she had fallen, "nothing that won't mend."

"Thank God," he said, then walked over to her. He helped her up, then drew her into a fierce hug, her skin tingling where she touched his virtual form. "I don't know what I would have done if something had happened to you again."

"Thank goodness we didn't find out," came a woman's voice, the Queen's, "what you did do was spectacular enough."

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty," was all Jeremie could say.

Aelita turned and regarded the monarch.

"I feel like a fool," she said, "I should have realized who you were from the beginning. I apologize for not recognizing you sooner, Your Majesty."

"It's alright, Aelita," the Queen said, "it was fun for a while, being just Mrs. Windsor. I so seldom get to be just a regular person and not a royal."

Jeremie then heard Franz's recall in his helmet.

"Looks like we gotta go," he told Aelita, "sorry to leave you in the lurch."

Then, he said to the Queen, "Your Majesty, there's a supercomputer somewhere in England that was controlling all of this. We think it might be somewhere in the Bath area. Anyway, we have to destroy it to make sure that it can't be used like this again. I don't know if it belongs to the Government or some private company; all I can say is I'm sorry we have to do it."

With that, Jeremie vanished.

"Well, young lady," the Queen said as she rose up from her seat and smoothed her outfit, "it seems like you have a little explaining to do."

* * *

When Franz destroyed the English supercomputer, they all were kicked straight back into Lyoko, waking up on the transporter pads where they had stood on when they started the night's journey. About as soon as she got her wits about her, Yumi stood up and stalked towards Odd, who back away a few paces, then turned and ran for it. All Jeremie could do was look at Ulrich.

"What's up with her?" the genius asked.

"I'll tell you later," was the reply.

With that, the duo boarded the Skid and took it outside. They flew on to the 'Net, coming up along the outer shell of Lyoko, checking for any permanent damage. They cruised up to where they had found the box-like thing XANA had attached, and found it gone. Closer inspection showed that, although there was a hole in the shell, the shell itself was still holding. Franz said he would write a program to repair the damage, as well as remove the renegade conduits that had been created. Inspection completed, they returned the Skid to its docking bay.

As they were leaving the hanger, Jeremie asked, "Franz, where are Odd and Yumi?"

"Forest Sector," was the reply, "from what I can tell, she has him treed."

"Okay, I don't get it," Jeremie said, "what's gotten into Yumi? What did Odd do?"

"Well, you remember that 'something cool' Odd said just before we attacked," Ulrich said, "Mighty Mahou Hentai Rangers?"

"Yeah, I thought he meant Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers," Jeremie replied.

"Well, he probably did," Ulrich said with a chuckle, "if I remember correctly, the Power Rangers is called something like 'Super Sentai Series,' or something like that, in Japan."

"Okay, what did Odd say?"

"Well, mahou is Japanese for magic. Hentai is..." Ulrich hesitated.

"Hentai is what?" Jeremie asked.

"Jeremie, do you know what dirty magazines are?"

"Yeah, they've got pictures of naked women in them."

"That and all kinds of stuff about sex. The technical word for it is pornography."

"Okay, so what does that have to do with this?"

"Well," Ulrich said, "hentai is Japanese for pornography. Odd called us the Mighty Magical Porno Rangers."

Jeremie stopped walking and was silent for a moment.

"Jer, are you okay?" Ulrich asked.

"I'm fine," the genius replied, "I'm just deciding whether or not to give Odd a head start when I devirtualize him."

In the end, Jeremie decided that Odd didn't quite deserve to die, so he devirtualized him first, then waited two minutes before devirtualizing the rest of them. The moment she stepped out of the scanner, Yumi immediately ran off in search of the would-be spokesman for the group.

When Ulrich and Jeremie caught up to her, she was standing on the bridge to the factory, swearing a blue streak in Japanese at Odd, who somehow had managed to climb to the top of the bridge. He tried to calm her down, apologize, anything, but she wouldn't hear it. He was finally reduced to hissing and spitting like a trapped cat, even swiping a hand like a cat's paw at the enraged Japanese girl.

"C'mon," Ulrich said to Jeremie, "let's get out of here. I don't want to be the one to have to explain this to the police if they show up."


	14. Aftermath

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko, and the television series, Torchwood. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Additional Disclaimer:**Members of the British government and royalty are depicted from this point in the story forward.. Though most of the persons depicted are fictitious, the character of The Queen is not. However, the depiction of the Queen in this story should not in any way, shape, or form be construed as factual. The author has no knowledge of the Royal Family, and makes no attempt to pretend otherwise. The author intends no disrespect to The Queen, nor to the British Government, by their portrayal in this story.

* * *

She had never been in jail before, but this would forever be the nicest jail cell she had ever stayed in.

After the dust had settled, reinforcements arrived at the auditorium and took control of the situation. The Queen and Aelita were immediately removed from the scene; the Queen's Secretary rushed to the hospital, where he was admitted in grave condition. The entire time, Aelita waited for the white bubble of energy that signaled a Return to the Past, but it never came.

The army also rounded up Simon and the other SubDigitals, barricaded in their bus, Jim, Sissi and her father, Sophie and Randle Thorne. It took three burly soldiers to pull the woman off of the fallen choreographer. She had to be given a sedative to settle her down, and Thorne had to be taken to the hospital for massive trauma to his genital region.

Aelita was taken to Buckingham Palace. She was given a nice room and told to get some rest, because tomorrow would be a long day for her. The room was furnished with antiques hundreds of years old, and had classic works of art adorning the walls. This one room had more priceless historical treasures than any museum she had ever visited. But even with taking in the beautiful decor, she didn't miss the distinctive click of the lock turning, nor the shadow of two feet in front of the door. Yes, it was a very nice jail cell, but it was still a jail cell.

The next morning, she woke up and did her morning ablution. When she got out of the bathroom, she saw that clothes had been laid out for her. Someone must have gone to her hotel room and gotten her things while she slept, and set out a change for her.

Just as she finished dressing, there was a knock at the door. The lock turned and the door opened, and a woman stuck her head inside.

"Miss, if you're dressed, they're waiting for you now," was all she said before she slipped back out.

Aelita opened the door and saw the woman standing a few paces away. Next to the door was a soldier, her guard. The woman gestured for the girl to follow.

"This way, Miss; the Queen is waiting."

Aelita followed the woman, the guard falling in step behind her. She was led a short way to an elegant room. Inside was a table and chairs, with breakfast dishes set on it. Sitting at the table was the Queen and a man Aelita had not yet met.

"Please, join us, Aelita," the Queen said, "you must be famished."

Aelita entered the room and sat at the table. The woman closed the door, giving them privacy.

"First of all," the Queen began, pouring Aelita a cup of tea, "let me give you Our Thanks. If your friends hadn't arrived, I would surely be dead, and the country in turmoil."

"Secondly, you are not under arrest. I thought it best to remove you from the limelight for a while so we could talk privately. I cannot ignore what happened last night, and from what little you have said, it may not be over. I need you to tell me everything you can about what happened last night, so I can protect my subjects from future attacks."

"Your Majesty, I wish I could," Aelita said as she sweetened her tea and took a bite of toast, "but you would never believe me if I did."

"Not believe that whatever was powering those things last night were using some form of quantum energy and matter," the man suddenly said, "that somehow, quantum beings overpowered and overrode the wills of some of the people involved? The only thing that surprises me is that it was terrestrial technology that did all this, not that it happened."

"This gentleman is from an organization called Torchwood," the Queen said, "the Torchwood Institute was founded years ago to research and defend against unusual threats to the Empire, and what happened last night surely counts as an unusual threat. I give you my Personal Word that everything you say here will be kept in strictest confidence."

Aelita looked at the Queen, then at the man. Sensing no guile in either of them, she began.

"Around nineteen ninety-four, my father, Franz Hopper, completed work on a quantum supercomputer..."

* * *

"No, we never thought anything was unusual," the police chief said to the army colonel, "we just figured that they were refurbishing the place, and people would start working there in a couple of months."

The Chief Of Police for the town of Bath was explaining to the colonel why no one had investigated the abandoned facility that suddenly blew up the previous evening.

"Surely you didn't think it strange when things started going in and out, but there was no one around?" the colonel asked.

"Not really," the chief replied, "there could have been a small crew working inside the installation and we never saw them come or go. It's not like they were doing anything illegal."

"As it turns out, they might well have been," the colonel said, "anyway, we'll be taking over the investigation from here. One of my men may be around to ask you some more questions."

With that, the colonel dismissed the police chief and turned to a lieutenant.

"Anything new to report?"

"We definitely traced the explosion to the main generator," the lieutenant said, "though I'll be damned if I can figure out what happened. The best preliminary guess is someone intentionally sabotaged it."

"Any clues?"

"No, sir. If someone did this, there would be body parts all over the room, the reaction was that fast."

"Curious."

Just then, a corporal ran up and saluted.

"Sirs! An investigation team from the Torchwood Institute just arrived!"

"Well, that doesn't surprise me," the colonel said, "very good, Corporal. Lieutenant, pass the word to give the Torchwood people full cooperation. I get the impression that if anyone's going to figure out what happened here, they will."

* * *

Sissi, her father, Jim and the SubDigitals were taken to an army garrison just outside of London. They were checked for injuries, given something to eat, and in the case of the adults, something to drink, and settled down for the night.

In the morning, they were taken one by one and questioned about last night's events.

"So, Miss Delmas," the soldier asked her, "why were you back stage last night?"

"I had a backstage pass," Sissi replied, "I was recording some footage for a news report I'll give when I return to Paris."

"So, you are a journalist?"

"No, I'm a junior high school student. I was given this as a school assignment, and I have a lot riding on it."

"Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to confiscate your recordings," the man said, "we require them for our investigation."

"Great," Sissi grumbled, "and I was hoping to catch a break, too. Oh well, I guess my article will have to do."

"Article?"

"Yes, I also have to write a newspaper article for our school newspaper about the concert."

"I'll have to ask you for that as well. You see, we don't want anything getting out that might contradict the official story that last night was a terrorist incident."

"Oh, you mean it wasn't?"

The man smiled. "Of course it was. I must apologize, I generally assume that a member of the press would have ideas about an incident that are contrary to what we know happened."

"You make it sound like I thought it was an invasion from outer space or something," Sissi said.

"Yes," was all the man replied, "in any case, I still need to see your notes. If you like, I could go over it with you and maybe give you a little extra information to add to it, if you like."

Sissi beamed. "Oh thank you!"

_Thank God for the innocence of children,_ the man thought.

* * *

Jeremie spent a sleepless night wondering how Aelita was doing, and whether there would still be a supercomputer in the factory come morning. Even though they had enough energy to infiltrate and destroy XANA's London computer, they didn't have enough energy to launch a Return to the Past. And the Queen saw more than enough to set about an inquiry, and she had her hands on one of the few people in the world who could tell her most everything she wanted to know.

But morning came and Ulrich reported all was quiet at the factory. The blond genius connected to Lyoko and Franz Hopper told him the same thing, and that he would have the program to repair Lyoko finished by that evening.

* * *

"It would be very interesting to find out how XANA transferred quantum energy over the Internet," the Torchwood man said after Aelita finished her story, "that technology might be very useful."

Aelita said nothing, she just took another bite of sausage.

"Aelita," the man said next, "most of what we research never makes it into the public domain. As a matter of fact, very little of it gets used at all. My main objective is to evaluate the potential danger this technology poses to England."

"If we're able to destroy XANA, it won't pose any danger at all," Aelita said.

"About that, why have you children been carrying this on so long," the Queen asked, "surely you could have turned your supercomputer off at any time and lived a normal life."

"In the beginning," Aelita replied, "Jeremie kept the computer on to rescue me. After he materialized me, we couldn't shut it down because I would die if it were. After that, it was so we could rescue my father. Now, it's not only my father, but William Dunbar as well."

"The young man that paid you a visit last night," said the Queen.

"That was XANA controlling him," Aelita replied, "you remember what he said about the boy screaming. William is trapped somewhere, but has knowledge of what XANA does. That's why we keep fighting."

"And to think some people say the French are cowards," the Queen said to no one in particular, "well, now that you have told us what you know, we shall return the favor in part. Your friend Jeremie was correct, this XANA must have been using some kind of computer in the Bath area. We received a report of a large explosion in a complex in Bath early this morning. Evidently, shipments have been coming and going to this complex for the last few months. Nobody noticed it until the explosion."

"Another thing," the Torchwood man added, "we've done a preliminary examination of one of the bug things, you called them Kankerlats? In any case, there was practically nothing in them other than servos to move the legs and body, but there was a circuit board we found that was very interesting. We were able to trace it back to New Mexico, in the United States. Interestingly enough, there was a massive explosion in a supposedly abandoned facility there. Care to comment?"

"That was probably the computer we found," Aelita said, "it was located in New Mexico."

"Any you said there was another one."

"In a jungle somewhere. I don't think we ever figured out exactly where."

"I suppose we can't convince you to walk away from this," the Queen said, "leave it to the adults and go back to being teenagers."

"We can't," Aelita replied, "even if we did, XANA would find us. He especially wants me, so he can draw out my father."

"I see," the Queen said, "we are still in the process of debriefing your friends; so, for now, I must ask that you remain here. I'll see to it someone shows you around. Once they've been processed, you'll all be free to go, I would only ask that you say nothing about XANA, and keep to the official story we will be releasing."

"That should be easy enough," Aelita said, "people would think I was crazy if I said anything about XANA."

"Maybe not as many people as you think," the Torchwood man said.

Aelita finished her breakfast, then the woman who escorted her returned. The pink haired girl thanked the Queen for breakfast and then left.

"So, Capt. Harkness, what do you think?" the Queen asked when they were alone.

"She's cute," he replied.

"Keep your mind on the situation at hand," Her Majesty admonished.

"My knee-jerk reaction is either go and take out their supercomputer, or have the French do it."

"Why do I sense a 'but.'"

"But, if we did that, we would probably destroy the only thing keeping the Earth safe," Capt. Harkness said, "it just boggles the mind that children have been actively protecting the world from this thing for so long. My next reaction would be to offer them a job."

"We may just, before this is over with," the Queen said, "anything else?"

"No. I'll have my people look for anything about Franz Hopper and quantum computing. It may help us get a handle on whatever this threat is."

"Then I'll leave it in your hands," the Queen said, "please keep me apprised of your progress."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

* * *

"More information is being released about the terrible incident at the SubDigitals concert last evening. Two men, Randle Thorne of Pickford, and Harcort Fenton Mudd, a.k.a. 'Harry' Mudd, attempted a coup against the Throne last evening. Killed were members of the Queen's Protective Detail, including eighty-six year old Bess Myerson, who was impersonating Her Majesty at the time. The Queen's Personal Secretary, Geoffrey Anders, is in critical but stable condition in the hospital."

"No word yet has been given about the mysterious persons who appeared to break up the attempt, but authorities are still conducting interviews. One of the perpetrators, Randle Thorne, was taken into custody and hospitalized due to injuries received during the incident, while police are still searching for Mr. Mudd."

"A spokesman for the Queen made this statement: Her Majesty deplores last night's attempt to undermine British sovereignty. She vows to dedicate the entire resources of the Government to track down and bring to justice all those who had a part in this deed. She also mourns for those tragically murdered, including Mrs. Bess Myerson, a member of Her Majesty's Protective Detail and a good friend for many years."

"Estimates put the death toll for last night's incident at over one hundred, both military and civilian. This is BBC News, London."


	15. Home

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, particularly the characters taken from the animated series, Code Lyoko, and the television series, Torchwood. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Additional Disclaimer:**Members of the British government and royalty are depicted from this point in the story forward.. Though most of the persons depicted are fictitious, the character of The Queen is not. However, the depiction of the Queen in this story should not in any way, shape, or form be construed as factual. The author has no knowledge of the Royal Family, and makes no attempt to pretend otherwise. The author intends no disrespect to The Queen, nor to the British Government, by their portrayal in this story.

* * *

Everyone wound up in seclusion for a few days while government officials investigated and told their tales. Aelita spent one more day at the Palace, before being moved with the others. Sophie, who had been sedated during the incident to get her off Randle Thorne, had joined the group the day before. When Aelita joined them, she scooped up the pink haired girl in her arms.

"Oh! I'm so glad you're okay," she exclaimed, "I thought for a while there that those bastards got you!"

"I'm fine," Aelita replied, squirming out of Sophie's embrace, "the government people just wanted to talk to me for a while."

"So we heard," Sissi said, "so, how was hobnobbing with royalty?"

Aelita just blushed, "it was nice, but still was a jail cell."

And with that, the others started pressing Aelita for her tale. She told them, editing out anything that might spill the beans on Lyoko and the others. When she finished, Chris said, "well, this has to be the most memorable gig we've ever done!"

"Even more spectacular than Brussels two years ago," agreed Ben.

"Now, I'm going to have to find a way to work this to our advantage," Sophie added, "boys, hold on to your hats, 'cause this is going to be a wild ride!"

The conversation broke up and everyone went their way. Aelita walked over to where she was told her effects had been placed, but was stopped by Sophie's hand on her shoulder.

"Is everything really alright?" she asked.

"Yes, it really is," Aelita replied, "but I don't know how I'm going to handle all this."

"If you want, we can try and keep you out of the spotlight," Sophie added, "after this concert, I wasn't planning on you making any more trips anyway. If you want, I can give you time for all this to blow over, then we can talk about the future."

"I'd like that," Aelita replied, "I'd like to be just a normal girl for a while."

* * *

It was Wednesday before the SubDigitals were able to leave London and return to Paris. London police escorted the band all the way to the Chunnel, and across to France. From there, the group made their way back with no incident.

When they arrived, they were mobbed by reporters, wanting their story of the attempted coup in London. The British Government people had told the group the official story being released, so the band parroted it. Truth be told, what the government told them made the most sense, so it was easy to repeat it.

Sissi drove home with her father, separate from the band. When they got back, she set about writing her final version of her article, using information and tips that the government man had given her while she was sequestered. Once the TV station her father had spoken to at the beginning of this adventure knew she had returned, they immediately swamped her for interview requests, and requests to interview Aelita. Sissi accepted the offers for her, but told them she couldn't speak for her friend.

And Aelita? She took another route home.

* * *

Wednesday afternoon, a small ship descended from the sky, down to almost water level of the river that flowed by the factory. If anyone could see it, they would have seen a smallish, boxy affair with stubby little wings, however the ship was cloaked with an invisibility field. It cruised along the river to the bridge spanning it, then lifted up. It turned its rear to the entrance of the factory and slowly crept back. Just as it touched the railing, it stopped, a hatch in the rear opened, and Aelita Stones stepped out. Someone inside then handed out her luggage.

"There you go, Aelita," said the Torchwood man, Capt. Harkness, "door to door service. You can't beat that."

"Thank you very much," Aelita replied, "but aren't you afraid I'll tell someone about this?"

"Not really," Harkness replied, "just like XANA, you have no real proof. Say, you think I could get a look at your supercomputer before I go?"

"I don't know," Aelita said, "I'd need to ask my father or Jeremie first."

"Oh well, maybe next time. It seems like your friends got your message."

Aelita looked back across the bridge to see Jeremie, Ulrich, Odd and Yumi running across, shouting and waiving at her. She waived back.

"I need to go," she said, "and thanks again for the lift back."

"No problem," Harkness said, "maybe we'll meet again. And," he added with a wink, "if that boyfriend of yours doesn't work out, give me a call."

With that, the hatch closed, once again rendering the ship invisible, and silently sailed away.

Aelita turned just as Jeremie threw himself into her arms, crushing her to him.

It was definitely good to be home.


End file.
